Alan Ambrose

>>> Later you could even start the construction so the consent is locked in. There’s a gotcha on that if you’re in a high CIL area and this is a self-build.

An old-fashioned filament bulb? There’s often a big fast spike of current when they fail and a corresponding flash of light (think thermal runaway) which will take out fuses / trips etc. Not so much of.a problem these days since we don’t use many filiament bulbs. But … a big spike of current can still be a thing when electronic components: capacitors, transformers, resistors etc in modern LED assemblies, dimmers etc go pop.

Also going gently with rpm & pressure and holding firmly & evenly & perpendicular to avoid sudden friction lock-ups / biting. Any anti-rotation leverage you can get is good. i think torque required (& therefore kickback) is something like the square of diameter, so use the smallest diameter that will meet your needs.

Anyone? @craig

>>> Most commonly you would just trim out the floor joists and infill I probably should have said - this is for the cutout in the ground floor slab and down to the basement, also RC of course (for the pit). So can't be done so easily afterwards.

>>> We have a continuous air gap at the bottom and top with insect/rodent mesh also at the bottom and top. +1 And it's a right pain to do it after the fact mouse...I used this: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/354744433416?var=624078758378

OK following up with this. Here's a few ballparks on costs: https://www.lifton.co.uk/domestic-lifts-prices-how-much-do-home-lifts-in-the-uk-cost/ https://www.onlylifts.com/blog/how-much-does-a-home-lift-cost-in-the-uk-domestic-lift-elevator/ https://gartec.com/blog/how-much-does-a-lift-cost-uk/ Typically, the 'home' version of these uses a frame and no pit or a small pit of, say, 200mm, electric traction rather than hydraulic (rack and pinion, ball screw, chain drive etc) and runs at 0.15m/s i.e about 18s to travel one floor. By comparison, the slow-ish lift in the building I'm in atm covers one floor in 5-6s. I'm guessing that the slow speed is a regulation somewhere. Oh yeah, the 'machinery directive' and also Part M. Cost is say £20K average for wheelchair size although a slightly fancy 1.5m circular glass lift comes in at say, £65K. Those are 2-stop / 1-floor lifts, so a bit more for more floors. So, I'm considering a circular floor cutout of, say, 1.6+m and a pit of, say, 200mm. By comparison, a spiral staircase of those dimensions is about £3K.

Have you used a planning consultant to read the planning runes yet? Looks like the various decisions needs some subtle-ish interpretation. I also think that LPAs get a bit more real when they see a consultant, who is ‘one of them’ get involved.

Oh I see - ‘phase change material’.

Re: reusing the slab - you’ll want to allow for a bunch of insulation (anywhere between 100 &300mm) and check you have enough foundation strength there to support a house rather than a shed, so it may just be easier to re-make the slab. That also gives you more design flexibility if you need it. I vote also for a build schedule / financial arrangement that doesn’t leave the builder with the body of an 80 year old

I obviously haven’t been paying attention: ‘PCM cells’?

At least one has you, at least, owning the materials before delivery. That’s some protection although how well it works in practice I can’t say. There have been several threads here on BH which covered escrow. I think we should all demand it for these purchases. I’ve shown the calcs before, not crazy expensive.

Yeah it cuts both ways. It helps if you are familiar with the county court system though - I can file a new money claim in about 5 minutes. A few days later the client gets a formal looking writ from the court with a deadline for response. This won't phase the professional non-payer but will often help the casual non-payer 'come to terms with their priorities'. Don't let your receivables build up unnecessarily, collect as soon as you can. Act professionally and on a timely basis with quotes, invoices, statements, payment follow up, discrepancies, complaints, final notice, letters before action etc - if you signal that you're careless about being paid ... then guess what.

If you can see the airwash working then it's probably OK - you should be able to see the incoming air influencing the flame. There's nothing to stop you using a vacuum cleaner with a soft nozzle to suck out anything that's obstructing the flow though. If you are super careful, you can probably remove the vermiculite panels and see how it all works - but I probably wouldn't bother. If it's not broke etc. Is there a problem right now or are you just being cautious?

I have similar objectives to you i.e. a good amount of glazing - so, I'm planning on putting in the max amount of glazing while squeaking through the regs. My strategy (which I won't know completely works until I have planning and BC approval) is as follows: + read and understand the Part O simple calc. Bear in mind these opaque calcs were written by and for the big developers and originally drafted to prevent overheating of city centre flats FFS. Why single self-build dwellings should be landed with them you'll have to put down to a lack of political nous on behalf of the self-build community. Consequently these calcs don't take account for external blinds, brise soleil, low G glass etc - which is all stuff the big developers won't do - they would rather give their customers smaller windows. + do an initial house design with the amount of glazing you prefer. Think about the house orientation re the sun. You may want to do a check against Part O Simple Method and PHPP simple % guidelines to see if you're anywhere in the ballpark. Note that restrictions on N glazing are fairly light, W & E glazing a bit more and max restriction on S facing. + send in your design for planning approval, knowing that you will probably reduce and/or amend the glazing later. That should be no problem, it's adding glazing later that will exercise the planners. + find a BC that will accept PHPP solar gain calcs, my LPA BC, for instance, will only accept Part O (or presumably TM59). + model well for solar gain with PHPP and tweak the design to get under the PHPP bar. You may need any or all of complete shading modelling / brise soleil / external blinds / lower G glass. + if you can't get what you want and you have an OK budget, try modelling with TM59 and see if that comes up with a better result than PHPP. + check that BC will sign off your calcs and run the glazing amendments past planning for approval. Depending on your design and your proclivity for running calcs yourself you may need a consultant for PHPP and even for part O if you prefer to spend cash rather than exercise your Excel skills. (Actually I believe there's an online calculator now.) You will almost certainly need a consultant for TP59 if you want to use that instead.

Well that’s a lot more difficult if you can’t see the detailed data - a bit like trying to diagnose a health problem without the use of blood tests, xrays etc. I think I would start by looking at the ongoing hourly data on a regular basis and see if you can see anything weird. Also switch the HP and DHW off next time you go away and observe the variation/consistency of the ‘baseload’. If the high demand was caused by an odd heating situation when the outside temperature is low (e.g. defrost weirdness, rapid cycling, strange resistance load switching itself on etc) you may not find the answer until it gets properly cold next winter. Maybe keep monthly data in a spreadsheet and calc the non-heating load and the CoP etc. Check out potential problems with your HP model on the forum for that model if there is one. If you can’t work from the data then you have to use a bit more experimentation / research / intuition / elimination / testing / comparison with similar set-ups etc.

So, you can’t look at hourly data for a high demand day?

Interesting, so actually designed for ‘senior care’ and building management.

Ah, I assumed from the green screenshot that the overall consumption was smart meter data, no?

I knew the Capitalisation Police would be along shortly

Just to give us an idea of context - what kind of place is this - rough size, kind of insulation, format (flat, town house, country cottage etc)? Also, is this a new HP install, what happened before? Was there anything else re January that was odd or unusual? Are there other high load items e.g. car charging, other electrical heating? What geographical area are you in? e.g. this is not your rooftop snow melt system kicking in? BTW I don't think (a) to (d) are very likely, given that the HP consumption could not very accurate, but I would expect maybe within +- 5-15% of actual. CoP 3.6 in Dec, 3.1 in Jan. Sounds about right given I expect Jan was colder there too? I see your app gives you consumption by hour - it might be interesting to look at that and see whether there are any odd spikes in use - particularly on a high usage day. I've debugged a couple of things that way. My guess - either some other high load item was on at some point or there's something odd in the HP defrost cycle. Also, maybe look out Jan data by day to see if it adds up to 1,783? March looks like, say, 12 on average for a total of maybe 370?

Wow, that’s low - can you give us some tips on how you did that?

Ha interesting, 60GHz radar - presumably repurposing sensors from the car industry. Powered by USB? Would be great to have a wired, PoE version and an api / knx etc so it can be connected to one of the non-proprietary systems.

Note that open CT’s are not usually a good thing. >>> I know this can be done if you buy the immersion diverter and ev charger box from the same company. Unless you’ll enjoy figuring a non-standard solution which nobody else coming along later will really understand or you can’t accomplish something like your goal by other means (timing etc) … then maybe you’ve identified the best long term solution already?

I think the short answer is you need two more quotes - preferably from people who are not fazed by the job and want the business.