Kelvin

The Aqara FP2 Zone sensors are very flexible and really move presence on. However I found it to be too unreliable and needing too much intervention to keep working reliably. But this was just after it was released and I was just playing with it and Home Assistant while I was deciding whether to do HA at all and which to use. I like Home Assistant because it’s so open and works with just about everything plus I was familiar with it but I felt it would end up being a bit lashed together with a mish mash of devices making it even harder for anyone other than me to deal with it.

Open plan rooms with multiple lighting circuits are harder to control that way though. I’ve set it up with different automations light night mode that just switches on one row of dimmed downlights, or if we come home it’s all the downlights plus a few other automations. I don’t want to be controlling the house from an app as that’s hopeless for the other folk that live in the house that aren’t interested or when you have visitors plus I don’t carry my phone with me constantly. If I ever find myself needing to use an app to change something I try and figure out a way to automate it. Voice control isn’t nearly good enough yet and generally no one else in the house uses it (in my experience anyway) We have a lot of visitors/house sitters to stay and that switch allows them to control the main lights without needing a manual or instruction. I also don’t want any reliance on cloud services. The main issue I’ve found is making it easy for other folk in the house. It’s fine for me as I know how it all works.

One of the things we learned during COVID on hand cleanliness (pathogens anyway rather than anything else) it’s the soap and length of time you clean (at least 20s) that cleans your hands not the temperature of the water. Consequently I’ve never bothered waiting for hot water since knowing that anywhere I go.

Me too but it is dear like any of the dedicated systems and arguably not worth it if it’s just lighting you are controlling. My favourite part of the lighting is this switch that controls the whole open plan area and its many lighting circuits. You can also tap through all the various moods as there are several of those.

The product to use to seal the end of the duct is this stuff: https://www.millsltd.com/default/cable-ducting-fttx-products/duct-sealing/filoform-duct-sealing.html It’s not cheap but it’s what I’ve used in all my ducts. Some folk will say just use silicone sealer but it doesn’t work. I had to redo the sealing the ASHP installers did. SEPA have a best practice guide for borehole headworks chambers which I followed. https://www.sepa.org.uk/media/34501/an-applicant-s-guide-to-water-supply-boreholes.pdf We don’t have a high water table so haven’t had any problems. Heavy rainfalls has allowed water to get in but the drain to lower ground deals with it. The only way to stop water getting in would have been to tank it properly.

The Rehau ‘smart’ manifold system standard install is to fit the manifolds in the room where you need the water but that’s a lot of manifolds and all the required fittings plus you need make them accessible. Our plant room is in the middle of the house with relatively short runs to the bathrooms kitchen and utility room so we have two of their 9 outlet manifolds (4 hot 5 cold in each) Very compact so take up little space. Like @JohnMo our showers are hot by the time you’re ready to get into them. 15mm pipe.

The overflow drain is typically taken outside through the wall to drain with suitable protection from freezing. If you can’t do that drain it into a bucket. The overflow will only be a problem if you have a failure. The most common failure is a blockage so the brine tank slowly fills up. It might take two or three brine regenerations before the water reaches the overflow. My tank has some scale marks on it to allow you to keep an eye on the water level in the tank. But it’s important you can see that the overflow has water running out of it (under gravity)

It’s just a small Linux box with HA installed. They do (did) the yellow version which is more powerful/flexible. You can run HA on pretty much anything though including an old laptop if you happen to have one but that’s an involved configuration. I run it on my Synology NAS for example.

My overflow wasn’t even connected. Ask me how I know. It doesn’t mean two separate drains it just means two separate connections (like your dishwasher and washing machine) My softener and nitrite treatment overflows via a pipe into the dog bath.

I just googled typical Control4 costs. Take this with a pinch of salt obviously but bloody hell it looks very dear. https://mwsmarthomes.co.uk/control4-installation-cost/

It’s also used to backfill old boreholes.

I know you’re sure where it’s coming from but have you proved it to yourself by using a hose on the window side to see if water comes in or not?

They can be quite noisy. Like a desk fan. It’s a constant noise obviously rather than on/off. Round a corner and you’ll likely not hear it. Because it’s constant, if you could hear it over time it’ll likely merge in with the background noise. If you can find someone who has MVHR it would be worth seeing if you could go and hear it for yourself.

4 weeks is fast. I was 6 months from request to working electricity. Also Octopus

During lockdown a local high end hifi dealer loaned out his shop stock to his local customers. I was in the market to update my 30 year old Tannoy DC3000 speakers to something new. I had two sets of speakers on loan. Fyne Audio F702 and PMC twenty5 26. There was very little difference between all three pairs of speakers in reality. The PMC sounded marginally better overall. The Fyne Audio had slightly better bass control. Even my son’s 21 year old ears couldn’t really hear a lot of difference. I ended up keeping the Tannoys. However I did add a sub, mostly for the movies but wired it up to the Hi-Fi too. My Hi-Fi amp doesn’t have a dedicated subwoofer output so I had to use the pre-out. The sub (an SVS SB3000) has a lot of control over it though. The Tannoys have a very good bass response but the addition of a sub really made a huge difference. But you do need a sub you can configure properly. The addition of a sub should be subtle rather than obvious.

Spoke with the Scottish Land Registry. Obviously this relates to Scotland so the information might not relate to England. 1. The land registry only particularly cares about the land so it doesn’t matter to them necessarily what subsequently gets built on it. 2. It is possible to change the entry for the title to update it with the new address. You can do this via their online portal link below. You need to provide evidence (council tax bill showing new address) It’s a free service but will take some time. https://scotlis.ros.gov.uk/title-enquiry 3. There’s no guarantee the rectification team will make the change however. Ordinarily any changes are done at the point a title is changing ownership so old title says this new title should that. 4. Title inaccuracies can cause delays when applying for a new mortgage or hold up a sale. It can take weeks to resolve so making a request to rectify before you really need to do so can stop these delays. Clearly depends on your circumstances. No mortgage or plans to sell in the immediate future then no need to change anything. We had exactly this issue with the sale of our previous house. Caused weeks of delay. Eventually only sorted because I phoned the land registry myself, explained the situation and the very helpful lady made the change while I was on the phone.

I agree but worth a call to them. Shall update here what they say.

On ours it has the the house and garage shown fairly accurately. However, on the list of properties the house isn’t listed and the land just has the original name (address) associated with it which is what’s on our title. Therefore, it’s as @ProDavesays the map is the updated OS map but the registration on the land registry is just as it was, land only. I might follow this with the Scottish land registry.

If you’re married it won’t matter but it’s always better to have stuff you jointly own in joint names. My other half has had no end of grief trying to sort her dad’s stuff out after he died because it was in his name only. Further complicated because she has PoA for her mum.

Our land registry entry (the map) has automatically been updated to show the house and garage on it. We didn’t do anything. Not sure when it happened. The land is registered in both our names.

Ours did for the foundation blocks.

Good result. Thanks for the update

I used dehumidifiers mostly and some oil filled rads set to the lowest setting on the coldest nights as they were on extension leads.

Don’t let water sit on the sealant regardless of how good it claims to be. We wipe down and dry the shower every time we use it. Done it for years and never had any mould problems.

Heb Homes and Dualchas are sister companies run by two brothers with one running Dualchas and the other running HH. Dualchas is the architectural practice doing all the bespoke stuff whereas HH are focused on building ‘off the shelf’ designs in three types of houses in the traditional Scottish style of a Longhouse, Steading, and Whitehouse. I don’t know much about Dualchas and how they design and build a bespoke house. I assume they are much the same as HH kits so either a SIP or a CPS. I note that HH have recently changed their CPS system to the Sigma II twin stud system with blown cellulose insulation. That’s a step in the right direction and you’d expect better thermal bridging performance and hopefully air tightness albeit they don’t set themselves a particularly high bar compared to say MBC, I assume because it’s easier to make sure they achieve it. Regards their ability to build to near passive standards. I saw zero evidence in my dealings with HH on any real knowledge or ability in passive or near passive builds. Also the kit erection team they used for our build have no idea what passive is. Dualchas might be more knowledgeable on the subject however. Ultimately I think it would be down to you as the home owner to do all the relevant research and ensure it was built to whatever standard you were aiming for. I couldn’t recommend HH at all. I spoke with someone recently who is currently building a HH and their experience sounds exactly like ours so nothing seems to have changed over the last two years. I can’t comment on Dualchas so it might be better run. Generally though, their houses are very attractive and sit well in the rural landscape. They also make efficient use of the interior space . Our house is performing really well so far but this will be our first winter living in it. That said most of that is down to us rather than them.