Kelvin

I used quality semi-rigid to the manifold which is really easy and quick to install. It’s also quite easy to damage if it catches on any sharp edges or random nails so some care is needed. We’d never have got rigid through the building. One mistake I made was not allowing quite enough room in the ceiling for the manifold, attenuation and pipe work to the MVHR unit. With a bit more thought I could have mostly hidden it. However it’s all in the plant room so not a big deal. The other issue we had is the MVHR unit is in the single storey part of the house so getting the ducting through into the other side of the house was a right pain. The design of the house made no allowance for this.

In the TV Room I use GU10 bulbs that have an adjustable beam angle. They push in and out to vary it between 24° and 35°. Works to light up the pictures on the wall or spread the light cone. The GU10 bulbs are from Aurora, Megaman, and Philips (master series for what it’s worth), all dimmable and vary in light output from 375lm to 459lm. Where I needed varying colour temperature I used Hue GU10 bulbs (400lm) The rooms are more than bright enough on full and I wouldn’t want them any brighter. I only use full brightness when cleaning the floor anyway. I found lighting the vaulted living room the hardest to do. The companies I used for lighting were: https://www.modernlightingsolutions.co.uk https://www.ultraleds.co.uk https://www.glowlighting.co.uk/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=20623605482&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=20623605482&gbraid=0AAAAADMrSi0wTm1hTjB0kA1sFDeRRKaJw&gclid=CjwKCAjwz5nGBhBBEiwA-W6XRM_PagthUXkyDr8xPOi_Y1E1TsdTXHUzQ0G8R3tU3y8w-_C4TFembBoCCDoQAvD_BwE https://lumierehome.co.uk https://www.keslighting.co.uk/?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=16298962484&gbraid=0AAAAADN3H7k_VqROvR-bGEh6G4Z76MlNP&gclid=CjwKCAjwz5nGBhBBEiwA-W6XRJXLAmzia9r7xxMAf0jjNpmxQ-vCoFDCmvWqOQRyT_13CjFqn-qTxRoCxmgQAvD_BwE https://www.ledbulbs.co.uk https://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/?ad_position=&source=adwords-tlc&ad_id=388450449108&placement=&kw=tlc direct&network=g&matchtype=p&ad_type=&test=finalurl&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=207957677&gbraid=0AAAAAD-6GhluCawCTTUukum8zze2yKu6D&gclid=CjwKCAjwz5nGBhBBEiwA-W6XRNAE7eF6h5IZFyJPI3vuaAQgG3Rm1IoL72AsGwlnjB3jxeKlzUXltBoC_B8QAvD_BwE

This isn’t answering your question but do you really need the individual downlights to be smart rather than just the lighting circuits? (Assuming that’s what you mean) You’ll likely control the lights a less than you think once setup and automated. Our lights are mostly controlled centrally in Loxone. For the downlights in the open area 4 x 4 grid) they are organised as 4 separate lighting circuits all mains dimmable (I use three dimming settings - fully bright, 60%, and a nightlight setting) For all the other downlights they are just by room. I chose different colour temperatures to suit the room the downlights were in so warmer for the living area, cooler for the utility room etc. Where I needed more individual control I just used Philips Hue bulbs largely because I already had a shedload of them so wanted to re-use them. I have track lighting in the TV Room which is also where my desk is so the lights directly above my desk are Hue GU10 bulbs so that I can vary the brightness and colour temperature. All of the external lights are Hue bulbs on four separate lighting circuits per house elevation. It’s slightly less elegant to use in Loxone as you need to use Loxone and the Hue app but it’s all automated now so I never need to really use either app. I assume you’re using Home Assistant so it’s very easy with that. My garage/workshop isn’t part of the Loxone system directly (it is through Matter in a limited way) I used Shelly relays to switch the lights and various door sensors and motion sensors I already had controlled by Home Assistant with an SMLight POE ZigBee coordinator (highly recommended)

We got a 4m extra wide solid oak worktop from DiY online kitchens for not a lot of money. But we bought it with a kitchen so not sure if they’d sell you one separately. I also noticed solid wood worktops in in B&Q on sale recently for reasonable money.

Good stuff. I found Graf more helpful when I called them. Their website is quite poor.

Indeed. Although neither of my bit sets had a security bit that fitted them hence the need to drill them out. Oddly they had been used to secure the feet for a TV that I wanted to mount on my garage wall.

Nope a real screw type. You can screw them in but not out although there is a tool to do it. Coincidentally I had to remove two the other day although I drilled them out.

Is it an anti-tamper screw? Difficult to see the head. What’s its intended use?

Ah right the thing they call the +O module. Ask them for the technical specs it will possibly have some details on how quiet it is. Presumably it also switches on/off to pump the water. To some extent something switching like that can be more annoying than a constant hum you might get used to. Depending on where the tank is you could screen around it with something.

If you mean the Graf One2Clean with the blower unit then it can be sited remotely from the treatment plant by up to 20m (from memory) You could also build it into a small shed of some sort to deaden the sound. They do a green plastic housing for it which is what we have. It’s not noisy but you would hear it if it was close to your garden sitting area or an open window. It’s a gentle hum that comes on and off. Like I said before what makes more noise is when the air ram pump is emptying the water assuming you fit an SVP at the tank (which is their standard install) You can hear the water bubbling out of it.

All sounds contentious so it’s going to be a hard few months. Without a physical barrier there is likely going to be damage. Heras fencing will just get moved and will likely be banged against your house. I can almost guarantee that they will use your wall to lean stuff against. Site boarding fence as close to your wall as you can get. That should still give them space to work and protect the wall.

What a pain in the arse.

It’s not hard to do yourself and you will take great care over it. How confident are you they will. It will take you a while though so plan it in if you’re doing it yourself especially if there are any follow on trades that need it done before they can start.

Quite a few of the wells and hill water sources around us have dried up too. None of the boreholes have though. We sit in the Strathmore valley so has water running into it from everywhere so it’s not very likely we’ll have problems. Our burn, which runs down into the valley, also never stopped flowing but it was the lowest we’ve seen it. I reckon for as long as it runs with water our borehole should have water in it. My reason for wanting to measure it is to inform our water usage. We’ve got our water usage down below 100l per person recently. We have a water softener for example that uses a lot of water when it regenerates. I’ve switched it off during this dry spell. I don’t necessarily need to measure it to change our water usage of course.

Buildings have protective sheets attached to them for months, years in some cases. If the scaffolding is going to be on your land then it’s going to be very close to your house so won’t they have to fit a scaffold sheeting down it anyway like they do when it’s on the street? It’ll be the scaffolders that will hit your house if it’s so close so be mindful of that. I still think dust sheet from your fascia, scaffold protection, and try and get in site type boarding/fencing which is typically just painted OSB. Then agree how any damage will be remediated in writing.

If it hits 60m it will stop pumping. I agree, all the holes near us are deep (80m+) and if they run dry it won’t just be us in trouble. I had that very conversation with my neighbour the other week and we agreed fretting wasn’t worth it. A week later I was chatting with a builder who has a 120m deep hole and it has run dry this summer for the first time in 10 years. It also wrecked his pump. Ref the probes. I didn’t know any better. I thought water probes at different levels connected to a control board were standard as the two quotes we got included them. None of our neighbours have them and their pumps are a metre from the bottom of the hole. But then some of those boreholes were put in by a guy that works on his own.

Is the existing fence coming down and the scaffold will be on your land? I’d just fix a dust sheet to the fascia and weight it at the bottom.

The general principles are that new dwellings should be designed to allow people with restricted reach etc to be able to access and operate the facilities in the house. While the regs don’t specifically say you can’t as far as understand it, it would seem to not meet the general requirements of accessibility if it was on a first floor. Why isn’t there a location on the ground floor?

Scaffold protection sheets the full height of the scaffold. Have them pay for a temporary fence to run the full length of your house. Assume it will get damaged and agree now in writing what the remedy will be. Patching a repair might not look acceptable to you and replaced cladding might not match well.

We had two analysis done one when it was first drilled and after it was commissioned and another 6 months later but haven’t since then. You can buy water test strips. I have a comprehensive kit of them so test it every month. We can measure water use and water pressure as we have a DAB pump that has a Home Assistant integration. The DAB pump alerted me to a leak a while back as it notified me that system pressure was falling and it was repressurising it periodically. Turned out to be a crack in the body of the external tap. The only other thing I’d have liked to have added to monitor is where the water level is in the borehole as that has changed from when it was first drilled and particularly during the long dry spell. We have water probes at different levels in the hole connected to the control panel at 10m, 20m, and 60m with the pump at 80m. After 9 months we had to rewire it to disable the probe at 10m as it kept setting the alarm off. The original water level was at 1.2m bgl so this has dropped several metres.

Yes of course. Apologies, I wasn’t very clear. What I meant is the Zappi is installed at the meter on a short cable run rather than elsewhere in the house. The transformer is on the next pole adjacent to the pole I’m attached to. There seems to be a nominal 3V difference between what the inverter shows and what the Zappi shows. Measuring using my multi-meter and it matches the inverter.

The mains cable is only 23m from the overhead line to the meter cabinet and this is being measured at the meter tails. I’ll set up Shelly and have it measure the V at the CU to compare. I have a 12kW inverter and I had it set to charge at 8kW although I’ve settled on 5kW for normal use.

The AC voltage at the inverter is slightly higher than what the Zappi is showing. The Zappi is reading this at the meter. The drops (sag) is me initiating charging the storage battery as I was testing being able to control it and automating it from Home Assistant. I’ll check it again tomorrow as it will be a slightly better day for solar generation.

Solved this in a different way. The Zappi tracks the voltage as a diagnostic in Home Assistant.

Yes Home Assistant refers to readable outputs as sensors. I rummaged around in my box of stuff and came across a Shelly energy meter so that should allow me to monitor it.