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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.

Luckily with MVHR we rarely have the need to unlock any of our windows. Obviously in summer that is a different story.

I’m glad you have said this, because I’ve been thinking it for a while. This is exactly what I’m going to do. I pressed the trigger on a professional alarm today. I know that a more cool headed approach would be to save money and go the self install route, but I didn’t want to be responsible for a bad installation, and I also wanted it done quickly. The burglary hit us bad. The scumbags came back a few days later and stole the car too. Luckily I recovered that thanks to a tracker. Now I’m preparing for the fight with the insurer. Can you believe they have sent their “agents” to my house to check my locks and entry points THREE times. They haven’t caught me out yet though, and I’m not about to start letting them by declaring an alarm.

Quotes I’m getting for installation of an insurance approved alarm are crazy. Cheapest quote I’ve got is £1250 installation plus £30 a month for monitoring. Some quotes are twice or even 2.5 times that. There is only a £200 a year saving on insurance on getting an insurance approved alarm. Some insurance comparison websites even quote more if you have an alarm - very odd.

@AliG which brand alarm do you have and are you still happy with it?

This. With the exception of our undercounter freezer, every base unit pulls out, either as a drawer, or pull out wire rack/larder unit, or a Le Mans unit (in the corner).

I am considering putting an external WAP, such as the Ubiquiti Swiss Army knifeknife Ultra on a south facing wall. The best position, for various reasons is on the outside of black gutter. Being white, it will stick out like a sore thumb (the wall is a brownish grey brick so wouldn’t look good on that either, even if I could fix it there, which is tricky). Spray painting it black would help conceal it from the scumbags who burgled me, as well improving things aesthetically. But might it overheat in the summer sun, given black doesn’t reflect as much light as white?

Is there a trunking solution that is difficult to cut? We had a burglary where part of the MO used by the scumbags was to tamper with our security lighting so that it didn’t work. Although we didn’t have any cables exposed, had we I’m sure they would have cut them. I’m now installing PoE cameras and need to protect the Ethernet cables from being cut: my walls are white and I would prefer to buy something that comes in white so I don’t have to paint it. Is there anything that is quite difficult to cut? Some of it will be relatively out of reach, but some of it needs to travel well within reach.

Another consideration: is it best to avoid outdoor switches, and keep all the switching internal, or is there a place for outdoor switches?

@Nickfromwales you make a good point. To save time I asked ChatGPT. I told it all the devices I had and what I wanted from it. And this is what it outputted: ┌─────────────────────────┐ │ ISP / Modem │ └─────────────────────────┘ │ (WAN connection) │ ┌──────────────────┴──────────────────┐ │ Ubiquiti Dream Router (UDR) │ │ [ Acts as Router + UniFi Console ]│ └───────────────────────────────────────┘ │ LAN1 (uplink to Netgear GS308PP) │ LAN2 → (Personal Computer 1, data only) │ LAN3 → (Personal Computer 2, data only) │ LAN4 → (Tado or Hue, data only) ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ Netgear GS308PP (8‑Port PoE+ Switch, 83 W Budget) │ │(All ports can do 802.3at / up to 30 W, total 83 W shared budget) │ └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ │ Port1 (Data only, uplink from UDR LAN1) │ │ (PoE Ports) │ ├── Port2 ──> (PoE Out ~8 W) ── [ Swiss Army Knife Ultra ] │ └─ Access Point; *no extra LAN ports* │ ├── Port3 ──> (PoE Out ~13 W) ── [ U6‑IW (In‑Wall AP) ] │ └─ Four GbE LAN ports on the U6‑IW: │ • RJ45 #1 (Data only out) → e.g., TV or Hue Bridge │ • RJ45 #2 (Data only out) → (Unused or future device) │ • RJ45 #3 (Data only out) → (Unused or future device) │ • RJ45 #4 (PoE Out) → (Optional: could power 1 PoE device │ if U6‑IW is powered by 802.3at) │ ├── Port4 ──> (PoE Out ~15.4 W) ── [ Ring Elite Camera #1 ] ├── Port5 ──> (PoE Out ~15.4 W) ── [ Ring Elite Camera #2 ] ├── Port6 ──> (PoE Out ~15.4 W) ── [ Ring Elite Camera #3 ] ├── Port7 ──> (PoE Out ~15.4 W) ── [ Ring Elite Camera #4 ] │ └── Port8 ──> (Data only or PoE if needed) → e.g., • Could connect TV or Hue/Tado here • Or leave unused for expansion Clever.

I did not lay enough Ethernet cable in my house and now need to get creative to set up various extra PoE cameras. currently, I have the Internet coming in and going straight to a VirginMedia router that is just set up in modem mode. From there, it goes to my Ubiquiti Dream Router which then provides internet to a NETGEAR PoE Switch 8 Port Gigabit Ethernet Unmanaged Network Switch (GS308PP) - with 8 x PoE+ @ 83W. Two of those ports respectively feed Internet to two combination APs/switches which @Nickfromwales recommended, otherwise known as the Ubiquiti U6-IW. Image of the U6-IW below: If I buy another netgear switch like the one above, and feed it Internet from one of the U6-IW units, will that enable me to plug my PoE cameras into the netgear switch, or is not advisable to have a switch taking its Internet from a switch which is in turn taking its Internet from the U iquiti Dream Router (which itself has a form of built in switch). Sends like a lot of switches!

That is rather a spectacular looking house. Well done for building that!

Good advice, thanks.

My buildings and contents insurer sent a window surveyor to have a look at the broken in window. By this point another agent of the insurer had already been around to “secure” the property by removing the top hung part of the casement window that had been forced open by the scumbags with a crow bar. He took one look at it and quickly concluded that the whole thing needed complete replacement. I have two concerns about this: 1) The window was fitted prior to us installing the EWI and ceresit render. Although the EWI is only about 45mm thick, it will still be quite a destructive job to remove the window and patch up the EWI and Ceresit. It will result in an evident patch-up rather than the beautiful render I had before, as the render is largely continuous. Could they also damage the EWI? 2) the window surveyor works for a window company - doesn’t this risk that they won’t from an objective view? Given the window is only a couple of years old, it would be straightforward to contact the manufacturer and ask them whether it’s possible to fix. I mentioned that to him and he didn’t seem interested.

As you may have picked up from a couple of other posts, I'm dealing with some scumbag burglars. Have decided to max out the credit card on a properly fitted burglar alarm that will hopefully get us a discount on next year's insurance (given the large claim I'm about to make on this year's) and some extra physical security measures, but that is proving expensive, so I need to scrimp on installation costs of the extra 3 or so cameras I want to install and see if I could do that myself. I realise there are two ways of doing this: I could drill larger holes and use pre-crimped Ethernet cables (with connectors attached) or drill smaller holes and use bare Ethernet cable that I'll then need to crimp after threading. According to chatGPT, this turns out to be quite a big difference in hole diameter: I will be drilling mostly through solid brick that then has EWI and render applied on the outside. I don't own a crimping tool or have any wire strippers, so I would need to buy that if I went down that route. The alternative of drilling larger holes is looking appealing, particularly since the ready made outdoor rated cables don't appear to be that much more expensive for the small amount I'll be using, see this one here: which for cables in the 7.5m to 10m range, work out at just over a £1 a metre: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mygatti-Ethernet-Outdoor-Gigabit-Waterproof/dp/B0CYZRH36D?th=1, so about twice as much as buying bare cable, an additional cost which would be offset by the saving of not having to buy a crimping tool. So a few questions: Are there significant downsides of larger holes? Presumably it creates more of a space to plug, but if it's plugged properly, is there any other issue? To protect the cable from being cut by the scumbags, what sort of trunking do people use? I have to run a cable along a fence for a couple of metres, and then turn 90 degrees a couple of times, so whatever trunking I use needs to either be flexible or have 90 degree elbows that I can utilise. Is using a Hep 20 pipe a good idea? Alternative would be to use armoured CAT6 cable, but presumably this renders it too inflexible to achieve a 90 degree bend? How much for a decent crimping tool and is it really as easy as suggested below to do this:

That’s exactly what I thought too. It was several thousand more to have the whole house kitted out to PAS24 standards. I have gone back to the retailer to complain, and this is what he said (the reference to steel is because although our windows are aluminium, the same supplier does a very similar window, though not thermally as efficient, in steel which was more expensive): In terms of PAS24 this is a standard that is determined by the government and has a set or rules for the devices used for breaking in, this is designed to help prevent break ins but does not claim to be unbreakable. The Pioneer system passed these tests. However burglars do not adhere to a set of tests and so if they have the inclination and time they can force their way into anything (including steel). He subsequently suggested I look at other suppliers who do European Standard RC4 or RC5 which is commercial grade. For the utility window I will just put metal prison style bars in. I need to research which type but hopefully not too expensive or difficult to do. For the other windows, metal bars would really make our place look like a prison, so I’m going to avoid that.