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I went for one which supposedly had a 1" connection, specifically to avoid reducing our flow rate. This is what was marketted as a 1" connection: https://www.eastmidlandswater.com/1-inch-water-softener-fitting-kit/1383 I was surprised to see that once installed one of the parts (of which there are two, one on the inlet and one on the outlet) is definitely narrower than an inch. See photo below. The photo makes it look like only 20mm but it's probably a 22mm at it's widest point, connecting two pieces that are an inch thick. Now an inch is only 3.4mm more than 22mm. So an additional radius of 1.7mm. Ignoring the thickness of the fitting, the cross section of the fitting would have an area of 380mm2 vs 507mm squared. So whilst the 3.4mm different doesn't sound like a lot, it works out at a difference of 33% which is a lot! So I'm minded to complain to the company that sold me the softener.

In the end, I just bought an unmanaged NetGear switch. I was a little overwhelmed by all the settings on the ubiquiti stuff I had bought, and the combination of wanting one less thing to manage, with the unavailability of the ubiquiti switches, were deciding factors.

I have a Brink Flair 400. This is almost identical to the Brink Excellent, which I think @jack has. I’ve been struggling to get it connected to the brink-home.com website, which supposedly then lets you access all the machine’s data and some settings/controls through their web portal. I’ve got the MVHR onto my WLAN, signal is very good according to my Unifi app. The procedure for getting the machine onto Brink home is to enter the serial number and a password into their website (after creating a logon username and password): I’ve put my serial number in, which I’m confident is correct, but the password is just what I’ve been given by the installer at CVC, which is Install1 I get an error message saying that either the password or the serial number are incorrect. Does anybody know what the correct password might be, or how to reset the system password? I’ve tried contacting CVC about this a few times and they’ve really let me down. Nice company, but poor customer service after you’ve paid the final bill, which they forced me to do even though I identified this issue. They said we will sort it out later, but until you pay the final invoice you can’t have your commissioning certificate.

To answer your original question, air movement within the roof build up, is unlikely to make a big difference in my view. You are much better off putting in as much wood fibre as possible, and also installing a Velux and a window on opposite sides of each room that lets you run a draft in summer. For extra comfort, install external roller shutters on the veluxes. Expensive, but keeps the heat out when you are not in the room.

There certainly is, but stupidly expensive: https://en-uk.ring.com/products/video-doorbell-elite

This is a good build up, but I think wood fibre has a better decrement delay than blown cellulose. At least according to ecomerchant.co.uk: insulation materials offering a high decrement ‘factor’ include cellulose fibre (7.3 hr), wood fibre insulation board (11.3 hr); whereas materials with a low decrement factor would include low-density mineral fibre (3.7 hr) and polyurethane/ polystyrene.

After a lot of tinkering, I think I’ve made progress. I manually got each of the 3 APs to use channel 1, 6 and 11 respectively on my main network so that they didn’t interfere with each other. I also created a 2.4ghz only network for the problematic devices. Ring Doorbell still not getting a great signal, but it is working. Just kicking myself I didn’t get the PoE version Touch wood everything else seems to be working well… let’s see how long it lasts.

how do you do that?

It sees the network, I try to connect, entering password, and then firestick just says connection error. I changed the security setting from WPA-3 to WPA-2/WPA-3, but this made no difference. I don’t think there is a lower security level.

Fire stick still not managing to get online, despite only the dream router running and the Dream router being 4m from the fire stick, in the same room. I’ve reset everything. No solution. All a bit disappointing to be honest. So far this is proving more hassle than it should be.

Making good progress insulating the copper pipes coming out of my UVC. There is a funny looking termination at the top of one pipe, that has a sort of valve/terminal on it that says it is rated for 10 bar. Looks like this (sorry, I should have photographed it before I insulated most of it). Can I completely cover it up?

This is where I have been looking. I’m after the switch lite 8PoE. That’s still out of stock. I’d consider getting the 16PoE version, but it’s out of stock too.

I was actually having problems on all devices in the house I tested, including an iPhone XR and a pixel 3a and a computer connected only on wifi. Connectivity was erratic and VERY slow. So I unplugged the two APs so that the only wifi signal is coming from the Dream Machine. This has fixed the problem on the two phones and computer. But the ring doorbell is still showing -73dBm signal on the Unifi app and a “poor signal” on the ring app. This is an improvement compared to when the two APs were on as it showed “very poor signal” on the Ring app.

So following much umming and ahhing (detailed here), and lots of advice from @joth , @JonJumpand @Thorfun and others, I took the plunge and bought a Ubiquiti Dream Machine and two IWHD access points. All three components are compatible with the Wifi6 standard, which doesn’t make much difference now, but hopefully will do when we upgrade phones etc. I see that the new fire stick supports wifi 6 also, but haven’t got one of those. I wanted to get a switch as well, but they are all sold out, and as advocated by @Nickfromwales, the IWHD actually have a built in switch for four ports, one of which is PoE pass through so temporarily I’m managing without a separate switch. I went with the UDR over the UDR pro because at £185 it is considerably cheaper and has a built in access point. I also don’t need the extra functionality of the pro. Managed to turn off the wifi and the DHCP server on the Virgin super hub. Plugged that in to the UDR and then set that up which was straight forward enough with just one network. Used the same SSID and pw as my old Virgin Network so that I wouldn’t have to change credentials on all my devices. Then I plugged in and provisioned the two IWHD APs using the two PoE ports on the UDR. One AP provisioned pretty easily. For reasons I don’t understand, the other was more temperamental, though appears to have settled down after I rebooted it and tried again. The major problem we are having is our Ring doorbell and Amazon fire stick are not happy, despite the Unifi app thinking they are both having a great “wifi experience” score, they are both struggling to get online consustently. Discussing it with a friend who is more tech savvy than me, he thinks that these cheap devices aren’t smart enough to deal with the availability of multiple APs, both being in range of two APs. The fire stick is actually located exactly in between two, though one (ie the UDR) is in the same room, whereas the other is on the floor above. Looking at the device settings within the Unifi app, there is in theory a way of forcing any device on the network to use only one specific AP: But in practice, when I try to enable “Lock to access point” it doesn’t fix the problem. Googling around, it appears the solution for devices that don’t move around the house is to create a wifi network that is broadcast just from the AP closest to the device in question, and doing that for each problematic “stationary” device. Sounds like a bit of a faff, but I will try and implement that this weekend.

That is bizarre. Amazon also sells sleeved versions of a 5A plug, I just didn’t think to check this when I bought them. i now have another query: the light fitting in re wiring had a shuco two pin plug. I chopped that off and now realise this isn’t earthed. It just has a blue and a brown insulated wire. Is that a problem?

I bought some 5A plugs from Amazon for some lights that I want to run on a 5A lighting circuit. I was about to rewrite the light fittings with these plugs when I noticed that the L and N pins weren’tsleeved. I think this means that a child with small fingers could partially unplug the plug, touch the pins which are still partially plugged in, and electrocute themselves, right? i found this online: In 1984 BS1363 was amended with a requirement that the line and neutral pins should have an insulation sleeve. 30 plus years later, equipment fitted with non-sleeved plugs is still found in use. What should you do if you find an non-sleeved plug during a PAT inspection? Plugs sold in the UK have been covered by statutory legislation since 1987. This legally requires them to meet the BS1363 British Standard. so Amazon are selling ilegal plugs: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ruisita-Pieces-Adaptor-Household-Lighting/dp/B08P154R3R/ref=mp_s_a_1_10?crid=2KEU9G4KT1BNT&keywords=5a+plug+uk&qid=1659560100&sprefix=5A+plug%2Caps%2C69&sr=8-10 or am I missing something?

I found a 32mm wall thick self sealing insulation for 28mm pipe: https://www.jtmplumbing.co.uk/insulation-c555/rubaflex-class-o-pipe-insulation-c921

It's quite complicated to figure out what is the ideal combination for any given situation. It will depend on various parameters and you will need to run the calcs to make sure you meet your BCO's requirements. Just by of example, this is what I did, but the outcome was not as good as i wanted. An extra 40mm or so of wood fibre would have helped I think:

Scratch that, I've just found 32mm thick in armaflex although whilst it is slit, it's not self sealing, which is a pity: https://www.jtmplumbing.co.uk/insulation-c555/armacell-armaflex-class-o-insulation-32mm-wall-c623

When you put it like that, it's a no brainer. Why would people buy anything else? I wonder if it's because Nitrile is a bit more limited product range. For example, the thickest wall insulation Armaflex does for a 28mm pipe is only 25mm thick walls. But maybe that's because any extra thickness wouldn't make a difference??

Thanks. Is there a benefit of using isover/rock wool over nitrile though? I ask because I have a few 1.6m straight runs of 22mm pipe which could take a rigid insulation product relatively easily.

So nitrile is better than poly. But what about things like Isover pipe insulation (which I believe is a type of glass fibre covered with alu foil, like this) or rock wool pipe insulation, like this). Where do they fit into the hierarchy? There are a couple of spots where I only have about 12mm of space between a pipe and a wall for pipe insulation, so would be good to understand where to use the more expensive stuff and where I can just increase the thickness (e.g. some places i have up to 40mm of space).

The point I was trying to make is that PIR does not have very good thermal mass compared to something like stone or wood fibre.

Is this recommendation for nitrile rubber also the case for internal use? I just need to insulate the copper pipe coming out of my boiler and into the HW cylinder.

is climaflex considered inferior?