Adsibob

I know Ring gets a poor report on this forum because of the subscription, but I’m fairly happy now that I have improved my outdoor WiFi. we have: 1 doorbell cam (wired, but only for power) 3 outdoor PoE cams 1 outdoor battery cam plus with a solar panel battery booster 2 indoor cameras All seven cameras get 180 days rolling unlimited cloud storage which has always been reliable. If I want to keep something beyond the 180 day period, I need to download it. I pay £80 a year subscription, which is a lot, but for 7 devices I don’t think that’s so much. I can have as many devices as I want for that price, although I doubt we would ever get more than we have at the moment, possibly one more if we ever upgrade our shed into a man-cave.

You can get PoE Ring doorbell.

Is it really not advisable to use a pressure washer and just water? My contractor who installed the render has cleaned my render this way and it worked fine. I have ceresit render and appears very tough. I was trying to mark it once before drilling into it and even hitting it fairly hard with a screw driver didn’t do much damage. I ended marking my hole with a felt tip pen instead.

I have the same unit as you, and mine was also fitted about 3.5 years ago. Now I feel inadequate.

I’m a bit late to this discussion, but here are my thoughts on the ground floor: If you switch the boot room with the WC, you can install a side door that gives you direct access to the boot room. This will require making the study and/or snug a little smaller to accommodate the boot room, but I think it’s worth it as you can then avoid walking through your hallway with muddy boots. A benefit of MVHR is that having ventilation from windows for toilets is no longer required. Currently, there does not appear to be a doorway into your snug.

If 600mm goes in the ground, that leaves 2.1m above ground. If 45cm is taken by the gravel boards, and 150cm by the fence, that leaves 15cm for supporting trellis. Are you suggesting it doesn't matter whether I go for 30cm high trellis or 45cm high trellis as either way I join the trellis along the top with an extra batten, to give it additional support? Or is it still better to go for 30cm? Building trellis entirely from scratch seems unnecessarily laborious when the supplier can supply it so cheaply. The 30cm high stuff is about £11 a 6' wide board, and I only need 6 boards.

So after discussions with my neighbour it looks like we are closer to agreeing the replacement of the fence which the burglars broke through. That fence was 4.5 feet high wooden panels sitting on a concrete gravel board which is about 1.5 feet high, so a 6 foot fence in total. Sounds high, but the ground level is raised by about a foot on my side, the concrete gravel boards making up a sort of retaining wall. They didn’t climb over it, instead they managed to exploit a weakness in one of the panels and get through it. I’m now planning on replacing the 4.5 fence with this 5 foot one: https://www.eastcoastfencing.com/6ft-x-5ft-ultra-heavy-duty-closeboard-fence-panel-pressure-treated-brown?_gl=1*18b65mh*_up*MQ..*_gs*MQ..&gclid=Cj0KCQjw16O_BhDNARIsAC3i2GADgF_150ffj2f5cihPlYl8P3YmV7wN28jL8p60pK3VThN90tv0M-IaAgo3EALw_wcB The side without the horizontal pieces would be on my side, whereas the side the burglars came from would be just the vertical planks. This would sit on the concrete gravel boards, between new concrete posts. On top I will fit trellis and on top of the trellis, the scissor spikes (see previous link). my question is given the longest concrete posts I can find at a reasonable price are 2.7m, what is the maximum height of trellis I can fit: 45cm or 30cm? The fence plus the gravel board will already be 6’6”. If I add 45cm of trellis, that makes 8 feet. If only 30cm of the 45cm trellis is bounded by the concrete posts, and 15cm is sticking up above the posts, this would mean 7’6” of the post is above ground and leaves only 41cm of post below ground in the concrete foundations. That is not complying with the installation notes of the 2.7m posts which say a third of that, ie 90cm, should be underground. 90cm seems excessive, particularly because this fence is largely protected on one side by trees and on the other side it is only 10m away from a house, so shouldn’t really have much wind exposure. is 50cm foundation enough? That would allow 2.2m above ground, which would be 45cm gravel board, 150cm fence, then either 30cm or 45cm or trellis only 25cm of which would be supported by the fence posts. The other alternative is to fit 6 feet of fencing and no trellis, but police recommend trellis as it provides less support to an intruder wishing to climb over which apparently creates a psychological deterrent as the intruder runs the risk of the trellis snapping under his weight causing injury. Thoughts?

Thanks. Those spikes from https://intruderspikes.co.uk/product/wall-spikes look good. Will probably go with those.

I don't think these will be very effective if a thick blanket was placed over them. It would just bend the bird spikes over so they weren't spikey anymore. Plus being longer they are more noticeable and uglier.

Refreshing this thread I need to get some spikey strips to install on top of my trellis. The options I've found are: Plastic: https://earlygrow.co.uk/product/fence-spikes?srsltid=AfmBOooT0wBqLvT_DpBdfK2i_Kky2LzYmyqB6u7AqffioMnus5-RYXg2 Metal: https://www.insight-security.com/razor-channel-inchuinch-profile-anti-climb-security-spikes-1point8-metre-length-galvanised-finish Another plastic option: https://www.insight-security.com/anti-climb-spikes-prikla-hinge-strip-individual-strip-500-45mm I like the third option the best as it comes in a colour that matches the paint on my fence and trellis. Only issue is that being 50cm long will need to be cut to size to fit 6 foot long fencing panels. The other products come in 180cm lengths which is not ideal because that will leave a little gap at the end of each fence panel which together with the fence post will allow an "island of safety" where the scumbags can get in. Other query is whether plastic is ever going to be as sharp and scary as metal? Presumably it could just be cut off? Let's keep it on topic please.

Thanks @sharpener. Another reason for preferring the “normally open” version is that in the event of a power cut it will stay open I believe, thereby making sure we don’t lose power and running water at the same time. I found a 1” version of the one recommended by imist https://www.mmcwebshop.com/products/a0e1dbe8f9/35372000019718077 so have gone with that. It cost 7 times the price of the cheapo made in China crap my builder originally installed so hopefully will last a lot longer than the 2.75 year life we got out of the cheapo one.

imist have recommended this PDV instead: https://www.mmcwebshop.com/products/f59dc1f60e/35372000007965040 it’s 3/4 BSP, is that going to be compatible with my pipework, which is compatible with the dimensions of the PDV shown in the image in my OP, sorry I’m being really daft.

So apparently, after a helpful call with imist today, the minimum requirement for the water supply is 14 litre per minute, which I just meet. I can only remove the PDV altogether if I have 25 lpm, which I definitely don’t have and never will have - we have already got Thames Water to increase our flow rates at a crazy price of c. £2k! As an alternative they are happy for me to swap out the PDV with one that only draws power to close, rather than the inverse which I have now, ie draws power to open. They are sending me a suggestion for such a PDV. In the meantime they have advised me to decommission the imist pump until this is sorted because the swapping in and out of valves can cause a sudden pressure influx into the pump which can cause a false trigger 😱 luckily that is apparently very easy to do, so they’ve said I can do it myself and are sending me a doc explaining how. Let’s see…

I wish I had gone with those two companies. Just to clarify: I am not considering changing systems. I want to keep the imist, just either take the PDV out altogether (with imist’s consent… it seems they may be amenable to this); or I want to install the best PDV money can buy (within reason) so that this never happens again. So that I can decide which route to go, grateful if anyone who knows plumbing fittings could let me know which PDV manufacturers are best

So is a security thing to prevent hackers hacking the device from outside? Sorry not sure I follow. What do you mean by the “box” and what do you mean by “phone home”?

I can now see the benefits, but alas without the benefit of a Time Machine and the right advice at the time, not really something I can switch to now. So I’m stuck with the annual servicing. But I shouldn’t be stuck with a crappy PDV. Can you recommend a better one?

Please could somebody remind me of the benefits of separating networks. I have three different wifi networks setup at home, one of which is 2.4ghz only, but i cannot remember now why I did this!?

Our BCO made us get a Fire Safety Report. The Fire Safety Engineer required us to install a sprinkler system on the ground floor of our house. This was because we had an open plan downstairs which meant the kitchen was open to the staircase AND we were doing a loft conversion. The spinkler company, iMist, made us install a Priority Demand Valve (PDV) on our incoming water main so that in the event of a power cut, the sprinkler system's tank is given priority. This is really annoying as although we've only had one power cut in the 3 years we have lived at the property, for the 6 hours or so that the power was off we had no hot or cold water in the house (I moaned about it on this Forum and I think @ProDave or @Nickfromwales and others agreed is was ridiculous plumbing situation). I complained to iMist and they shrugged their shoulders and said that's the law and I cannot break it. Turns out that they may have been wrong as they are now saying something different, but that is the subject of another post... So we've lived with this PDV and apart from that power cut no problems, until... yesterday morning it melted! There was an unpleasant chemical burning smell and no water in the house. I checked the fuseboard and the circuit on which the Priority Demand Valve is wired had tripped. I tried to put the circuit back on but it refused. Further investigation led me to realise the priority demand valve itself had malfunctioned. All the plastic sheathing around the bit that connects the electrical cable to the solonoid valve had melted. So the problem I had was that there was no water in the house and no way to easily fix it without a replacement PDV, as there is no bypass plumbed in, presumably to comply with the fire regs or imist's requirements in that they don't want you to be able to bypass this piece of "safety kit" which ironically in our situation could have caused a fire! Nobody is accepting any blame of course, but it was very unsatisfactory as there is no way to bypass that valve, this being apparently a requirement of the fire safety regs. The PDV is this cheap crappy unit made in China: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B071NW44B1?ref_=ppx_hzod_title_dt_b_fed_asin_title_0_0 I had no idea a proper solonoid valve costs over a £100, so incredible they can make any profit on the mere £30 asking price. Luckily I managed to got the foreman from our original build back and he has rigged a temporary fix, by disconnecting the melted wiring and removing a spring from inside the PDV so it is now permanently open rather than permanently closed. There is a tap that enables us to empty the pipe it's fitted on, so no huge mess of water, though it's not clear to me that there won't be a huge mess when we actually remove and replace it. Anyway, my two questions for the Forum are: Is there a really good quality PDV (which when powered is open, but when power is lost is closed) which has the same 84mm (3.30") dimension as shown here: Is this actually safe, even in a non-chinese crap brand? The design seems flawed, in that it is constantly being powered to resist almost 4 bars of pressure, 365 days a year? Seems nuts to me! Although the water passing through it is cold, it sits about 30cm below our boiler, in a boxed in cabinet, so it must get pretty warm in there. Is this an acceptable fire risk??? The gas pipe feeding the boiler is also very nearby. I just can't believe this thing melted the way it did. The noxious smell could be smelt in the bathroom directly above, although that's perhaps not that surprising given all the water risers go from that area up to the bathroom and beyond, so the wall that houses those risers providers for plenty of space for the smell to travel through.

Why is this important? I was initially annoyed when my electrician laid CAT5e cable in my house. I was surprised as it was one of the details I had overlooked in my spec; I just assumed that given CAT5e was what people were laying 20 years ago, he would have gone with Cat 6. But note I’ve actually lived in the house for a couple of years, I can’t complain. The internet works really well. I’m probably about 6M from my nearest AP and getting very high speeds on everything, over 320Mbps. I also not that my Ring PoE cameras come with CAT5e cable. I get that Cat 6 and even Cat 7 and 8 offer better future proofing, but what might happen in the future that could require that? We are on the whole talking about home networking aren’t we?

Not sure this is recommended. I prefer to run the crappy ISP kit in modem only mode, and get a better router from the likes of Ubiquiti. In modem only mode, the a a iSP’s router will now work as an AP, but I see that as a good thing. With Ubiquiti kit it can automatically calibrate the different WiFi channels to stop the APs causing any interference for each other. Don’t think you can do that for a third party AP.

I also second this. I find the Ubiquiti. UniFi U6IW AP particularly useful as it doubles up as a further switch, but if you plan appropriately in tens of your cabling you won’t necessarily need that and you could just install the regular Ubiquiti APs. The Ubiquiti Dream Router is also a very good router with built in AP. In my three story house, I have the UDR which covers my entire ground floor (which surprised me as the ground floor is large), then I have a U6IW on each of my first and second floors. This is plenty, but to help cover an outdoor weak spot I also installed a Swiss Army Ultra which is cheaper and smaller than most outdoor APs on the market, although only supports WiFi 5, whereas the rest of my set up goes up to WiFi 6. WiFI 7 is now available so might be worth future proofing although not really necessary given WiFi 6 works so bloody well and only the absolute newest devices such as iPhone 16 support WiFi7.

My understanding is that whilst it can be changed, it’s not completely straightforward. The issue for me is finding a heating engineer that I can trust. Clearly there are a lot of people in the industry that don’t have the requisite knowledge, and so even if well intentioned, they just make big mistakes.

It beggars belief that this guy had recently done his Viessmann training. He showed me the certificate and all!

Sounds like you are heating your home with low temperature heating. That is what a Viessmann boiler is best at. Unfortunately, the idiot who installed my boiler, despite having recently got his Viessmann certification, didn’t think to do this even though our home is 100% UFH. So we have the boiler heating up very hot water (I think it’s set to 75C) and sending that to the UFh manifold where it gets mixed with cold water to send 33C water around the UFH loops!

Due to the burglary we recently experienced, we've recently installed some additional security cameras to monitor our side passage, which is where the scumbags broke into our house. The problem is that being a semi detached house, the side passage is also where the boiler sends its exhausts. Everytime the boiler is on, i get a tonne of alerts on my phone, triggered by the camera's PIR sensor. I have turned down the sensitivity on the camera and tried to restrict the motion detection zone, but the problem persists. This could be partially solved by installed a plume management kit to divert the exhaust plume upwards. I say partially, because the neighbouring property's boiler is also contributing to the problem and so I'd have to persuade them to do the same, which seems unlikely. Question I have is what is the difference between these two plume management kits: https://viessmanndirect.co.uk/Catalogue/Flues/Flue-File/Flue-60mm-Plume-Management-Kit-7373238 https://viessmanndirect.co.uk/Catalogue/Flues/60100mm-Balanced-Flue/Horizontal-Flue/Flue-60mm-Plume-Mangement-Kit-Reduced-height-7946889 The latter is described as "r3educed height" but they both come with 2 x 1 metre pipes, so i think they both provide a 1m extension. A separate question is whether i have to install the top 87 degree bend to point outwards perpendicularly from my wall (as shown in the image below), or whether I could angle that in any direction to suit the wind direction, which is usually westerly I believe. This would angle the flue exhaust in the direction of the camera, but given it'll have sufficient clearance, the white gasses should now float over the camera and not in front of it.