Mr Blobby

Its the cable laying outside the boundary that's the issue. The pole is either across the road or 80 metres along the pavement and under next door neighbours driveway. I did think that a wire hung from the pole would be more succeptible to failing in the wind but I guess that the cable underground would come down from a pole supplied with aerial cables anyhow. So maybe coming from a pole does not present reliability issues. The visuals remain of a wire from a pole but not a big deal. I'll put some conduit in the agreed place to pull the wire through. I did phone Fibrus, who are another fibre infrastucture provider here but they won't even discuss installation until youve ordered the fibre connection. And they suggested on the phine it would be from poles, which is odd as that would be from the openreach pole. I'm meeting the openreach guy on site tomorrow to chat through the options.

I finally get to speak to a local openreach guy whos coming out to look at the site tomorrow. It looks like fibre from the pole is free, fibre underground means they need to dig a trench that will cost a couple of thousand. Is it worth paying for the underground connection or do I get the free option from a pole and a wire to the house?

So openreach email me today to tell me that my site registration, that took me six weeks and numerous phone calls to complete, has been rejected. The openreach developer portal does not support sites in Northern Ireland. If only they had a decent website with some guidance 🤔 So what was the 3.5k quote all about then? For those of us building in Northern Ireland the place to register sites for a new fibre connection is... https://www.openreach.com/building-developers-and-projects/fibre-for-developers/registering-your-site/sites-in-northern-ireland

That is good news. Did Openreach connect to your conduit at the boundary? Openreach finally phoned me yesterday after six weeks of trying to register on their devloper Portal. The good news is I registered the site on the portal OK. The plot is in an urban area with houses either side connected to fibre. We demolished the old house that had a phone connection. Fibre to the premises is showing as available at the address on BT/sky etc websites. Openreach are quoting £3,840 to put in a fibre connection. WTF? What do I do now? I guess I can't just lay conduit in the ground as I will need to agree with openreach where the fibre will cross the boundary?

Openreach have still not set up my account on the developer portal. Builder tells me openreach don't allow the the cable up through conduit in the slab, which is my preference. He says it has to go through the wall. Which seems a bit shit. I'm sure I read on here somewehre that full fibre connection can now come straight in to the house without an ugly box outside. Is this true? Can I run the fibre cable in through conduit in through the floor?

I'll DM you...

Our KORE slab is scheduled to be installed in April. The installer is I think from Co. Donegal and recommended by KORE. The builder's groundworks team will be doing the initial excavation works.

That report says "In addition, recent evidence suggests that exposure to increased NO2 concentrations arising from emissions of NOx, may give rise to human health impacts that are as large (or indeed larger) than those from PM2" .. which is not quite the same as saying that NOx is more dangerous than PM2, rather it seems to say that PM2 is the gold standard of harmful emissions but increased concentrations of NOx can be as harmful. That report is also from 2012 and a lot has changed since then so its conclusions are not very reliable. NOx concentrations have fallen (fewer dirty diesels, thanks to VW) and PM2 concentrations have risen (more woodburners). <tldr> I didn't read all the report so correct me if I missed some detail </tldr>

Its not obvious or intuitive, but there is a self-build option on the openreach developer site when registering for an account. Not that it does any good though. I applied for access on the 7th Feb. Having heard nothing I raised a query on the 13th. There is supposed to be a 48 hour reponse time to queries. Still heard nothing so have escalated it today. Over two weeks and still no access allowed to register the site on their portal. Are openreach always this useless? Anything else I can do to move this forward? Shall I just go to Fibrus instead?

Correct. AFAICS there is no heating system specified in my PHPP spreadsheet, only heating demand. Back to the OP's original question, UFH is a no brainer I think because of cooling potential and low temps for heating. Also changing a window size should be no big deal. My architect shares the PHPP sheet with me so the OP's architect should be doing similar.

I really wanted to read the labels. Any chance of a larger image?

Thank you for the advice. Will contact open reach through their developer portal.

Guy Fawkes? That's a GB celebration. Nobody in Northern Ireland has ever heard of him.

I have no idea what that means. Go on, give us a clue..

What do I need to do to plan for the future FTTP line coming into the house? Not had FTTP before and know nothing about how this is installed. We are currently finalising the service entries into the slab so want to make sure this is all planned in good time. Too early to go to a supplier I guess, so do I contact openreach now? In terms of installation, I would rather the openreach fibre enters through the slab than the wall if possible, is that the right way to go? Is a connection box installed on the outside of the house or does the cable run straight underground into the house? It would be nice to have the cable coming into the rear of the house, about 45 meters from the front boundary. Are openreach ok with that sort of distance or do they have distance limits like electricity DNOs? Firmus are knocking on doors in the neighborhood and installing FTTP free of charge. The openreach site says £2000 max fee. Obviously free is better. What do I need to do?

Who told you that you need instant heat in a passive house, and why?

The house next to our plot has a log burner, it will be interesting to see how much smoke comes out the flue in the winter. Log burners are just anti-social but who's going to enforce this legislation? Probably nobody sadly. Even less chance of any fines issued here in Northern Ireland where attitudes to burning stuff are stuck in the 1950s.

No GSE frames in the quote? What's the standing seam made of? Zinc, aluminium? Integrating the panels in GSE frames will not only look better but will save money on the standing seam. Just make sure to put some ventilation underneath.

The OP asks about connecting up the towel rails to the DHW flow, not the central heating circuit, so will be hotter than UFH flow temps. It makes no sense to me because the times I want hot water are not the same as when I want to heat the bathroom towel rails. If I wash the dishes in the kitchen, for example, then heat is sent to the towel rails in the bathroom. Its bonkers. I take your point about the time to heat the electric towel rail, however, so we can always put them on a timer. The important part for me is that the towel rail control is completely seperate to heating the hot water.

The towel rail in our bathroom is connected to the DHW feed and I really hate it. Its awful. We have the DHW on for several hours a day; who needs towels that hot? The bathroom is either too hot, or if we turn of the tap at the radiator, too cold. A TRV would probably help but its a crap rented house so we just put up with it. The shoulder months are the worst as you can imagine the bathroom is like a sauna and the rest of upstairs freezing cold. House we are about to start building will have electric towel rads. Maybe controlled by a PIR sensor.

AFAIK the panasonic controller regulates the heat pump flow/return temps in one of two heating modes : WC or fixed flow/return temps. So what exactly does Brendon Uys mean when he describes the heat pump as controlling the temperature in Test 3? Has he set up test 3 with a fixed flow temp of 35C? That would be convenient. And would return a good COP but has nothing to do with the buffer tank. Brendon Uys has changed two variables in his test 3 (6 below), he has reduced the flow temp setting and removed the buffer tank. Surely a more scientific approach would have been: 1: Flow temp 50C + Buffer 2: WC + Buffer 3: Flow Temp 35C + Buffer 4: 50C no buffer 5: WC no buffer 6: 35C no buffer If, as I suspect, Brendon Uys has examined the COP from 1,2, and 6, and reduced the flow temps to 35 C when he removed the buffer then of course he will get a better COP. But that has very little to do with the buffer tank and everything to do with the lower fixed flow temps. Why not test the system with all combinations, to include a fixed flow rate of 35C and a buffer? That would return better COP, although it may be at 36C to maintain a steady simulated house temperature after the buffer losses. But at least the COIP would be better than allowing the HP to increase the flow temps.

I share your uncertainty about the 3-phase credentials for the inverter. The user manual is not an easy read but I did try. For about 5 pages. From what I can see (I'm no expert) it looks like you have been quoted for a single phase invertor that can be configured with two others for a three phase configuration, with one inverter on each phase. Perhaps that explains the single phase meter. If your quote is for a single phase inverter and 8 KW of PV attached to one phase then I think that would exceed the DNO limit of 4KW per phase. I'm sure someone will be along soon who knows what they are talking about and give a better informed answer. I hope so as our requirements are very similar.

Ah, I see. Wet plaster because this is best for airtightness is it not? Until the kitchen fitters arrive and drill loads of holes in it of course. 🙄

That's very helpful Nick thank you. But what exactly is a 'continuous layer of dab' 🤔 and is it also a good way ro protect the plaster (for airtightness) as well as provide a service void behind the units?

... and that's the million dollar question... do I batten out the entire wall behind the kitchen units to run the services and protect the plaster airtight layer from the kitchen fitters.