reddal

I recently got a 500mbit fibre connection. Even with devices directly connected with 1Gbit ethernet its hard to max it out on a single device. Switches and other bottlenecks tend to get in the way. And if one device could max it out - it probably wouldn't be a good thing - i.e. someone sets off a big download and it would kill the internet for all other users. CAT 6 or higher is a good idea for future proofing - so in 20 years time you should still be fine - but I don't think its really needed today.

When building a house - you can never put too many runs of CAT 5/6 in. When we did our house (over 10 years ago now!) I insisted on what was considered an absurd amount of cable runs - people were laughing at me over it. Years later I wish I'd done more. The cable costs very little - but dealing with the lack of a cable in a finished house is expensive and miserable. Whatever you think is plenty of cable runs - double it then add some - and you will still wish you did more...

Hikvision cameras are good quality and good value in my experience. I use BlueIris to manage / access them - but agree with other comments that this needs a pretty serious PC to make work. I did also buy a Hikvision NVR - but never really got this to work well - and stuck with BlueIris. The key to this kind of IP camera setup is having good CAT5/6 cabling between the cameras and somewhere you can install a PoE switch. Good luck.

No guarantees, but in my experience it will probably be fine. If you were trying to do some super high bandwidth application on the cat5 cable it might be an issue - but for a signal to open a gate I'd guess it would work even swarmed by power cables.

I'd recommend these guys for adding glazing to an oak frame - http://www.blackpig.me/glazing-systems/ . Their website has some info on different techniques. - reddal

Hi, We have a GSHP connected to a couple of boreholes. It was installed a few years ago. It was expensive - the whole setup was a lot more than the £17k you estimated. However we also got an extra borehole for water at the same time which has worked well. We have had various issues with the system over the years. The biggest problem is that there are very few tradespeople around us who know anything about GSHPs and getting problems fixed has been difficult and expensive. I get the impression that ASHPs are more widely used and there should be more people with experience of them. Anyway an ASHP is a simpler system. The one thing I do like about our GSHP is its ability to provide passive cooling in the summer, where the heat in the house is effectively pumped deep underground for very little cost. An ASHP can provide a similar functionality using active cooling but costs a bit more to run. If I was doing it all again today I would probably go with an ASHP - or even just an old-school oil boiler plus AC for cooling. - reddal

About £4/m2 for the acid stain (you could probably find it cheaper), maybe £2/m2 for the concrete sealer, and then some labor. Probably under £10/m2 - less if you do all the work yourself. If anyone wants to know more about the process, just let me know and I'll detail what was involved. - reddal

I'm pretty happy with the result. I'd recommend this technique to anyone that wants a cheapish way to get an interesting finish to a concrete floor. It was fairly easy - the most time consuming part was getting the floor really clean to start with. A pressure washer with surface cleaning attachment and a wet vac was very useful for this. - reddal

Understood. I think I'm ok with the existing surface - its not perfect but not bad and I'm going for a rustic finish so hopefully it will be ok. I'll let you know how it goes :).

Ouch!

I don't think so - you have to get the concrete really clean first, but people on youtube seem to have done this successfully without polishing. I guess the nicest finish would be polished - but I think I'm ok with a rougher, more rustic finish.

Yes - it looks expensive - and I bet it is if you get in a specialist company to do it. However it doesn't look that hard and the materials aren't very expensive - so I'm going to have a go on a diy basis. Actually when I say 'diy' I don't really mean doing it myself - I mean getting builders who have never done anything like this to have a go based on watching youtube videos :). From what I can tell, the acid stain itself costs something like £3/m2 , then you need some bicarbonate of soda to neutralize the acid and a concrete sealer product. There is some labor involved but nothing excessive - so it seems like it works out at quite a cheap option - for a finish that could end up looking great. I must be missing something? Why isn't this approach much more popular?

Hi, There are lots of people on the internet that seem to have achieved impressive looking results from acid staining then sealing concrete floors. e.g. : The process seems pretty simple (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSlzelQYEOU ) and gives a much more interesting finish than plain concrete paint. Does anyone have any experience of this technique? For every case that looks great on the internet is there 99 that were a disaster that we never see? Any recommendations on where to buy the supplies? (acid stain, neutralizer, sealer etc) . thanks - reddal

I've bought various tarps from these people - https://www.tarpaulinsdirect.co.uk/tarpaulins/tarpaulins/supergrade-tarpaulin Their 'supergrade' tarps are quite serious - I've got a couple that are holding up well after a few years of heavy use. The budget ones are a bit flimsy but cheap. There are various options in between.

Hi, I think 3D render photos definitely help if the scheme needs a bit of imagination to visualize. Years ago when we built our house we had 3D models of the house made up - more for our own benefit to tweak the plans. This worked well, but it was expensive (our architect contracted a UK company to do it and it ended up costing thousands of £). I could have learned to do it myself with Sketchup, but that would have been a huge time sink and wasn't an option at the time. Since then, I've discovered that there are much more cost effective ways to get 3D models built. You can employ a freelance professional from somewhere in the world who works on an hourly rate through various websites (I've used upwork.com). For a project recently I paid $15/hr to get a 3D model built, with rendered photos and a fully rendered video. It took about 10 hours of chargeable time so cost $150. pm me if you want a the contact details of the girl that did the work for me. I found the process of using professionals through upwork.com surprisingly easy and effective. I sent the plans, and within a few hours had an initial draft model to play with. Then I could suggest tweaks and try different ideas and get a new model almost in real time. - reddal p.s. I have no links or interest in this service - just recommending an option I found surprisingly effective.