Benefits of a basement for plumbing/heating simplicity

[puntloos]

I'm still toying with the idea of a basement. One of my M&E team says that having all plant (MVHR, chiller coils, cylinders etc) in one place will make the plumbing meaningfully simpler and more efficient. Same really with smart home networking etc. Having simplicity over complexity.

 

Also given the size of my basement I probably can even fit a spa - but that's not really a selling consideration.

 

Anyone have any insights on this one? How much better is having a central plant room vs having all the services stuffed away in under stairs cupboards, eaves etc etc?

 

Design: (the yellow 'ear' is the full-house-height service shaft - 600x600ish 

 

 

 

Edited July 25, 2021 by puntloos

[dpmiller]

two Qs.

Do you really want to be traipsing up and down stairs to the laundry every time?

 

Are you actually allowed (by your DNO) to have you meters such a comvoluted journey from the front of the house?

[tonyshouse]

I have a basement with plant room for MVHR , central vac, rainwater cistron solar PV, consumer unit , no spa though but office and gams room 

[Nickfromwales]

34 minutes ago, dpmiller said:

two Qs.

Do you really want to be traipsing up and down stairs to the laundry every time?

 

Are you actually allowed (by your DNO) to have you meters such a comvoluted journey from the front of the house?

DNO will allow you a max of 3m of exposed service / supply cable after it enters the house. So unless that cable is coming in through a sealed and watertight penetration they’ll likely refuse to bring it in elsewhere and allow the cable to traverse the dwelling to any useful extent. I got away with 5m or so once by going through a 32mm galv conduit and burying that in the centre of a 500mm ceiling void of a basement flat. It helped that the lads installing it were very young. 

[Nickfromwales]

Oh, and have the plant wherever you want, it’s not much more work to pull the cables or pipes to where they terminate, but it is nice to get the plumbing eg cylinder / manifolds together. Nice, but by no means essential or discernibly money-saving afaic. 
BUT!! Have the basement anyway!! What a fantastic use of the footprint of the property, and some great extra space. I’d have a basement at a drop of a hat, pennies allowing of course. 

[puntloos]

4 hours ago, dpmiller said:

two Qs.

Do you really want to be traipsing up and down stairs to the laundry every time?

Not if I can avoid it! So fair question. But if I put it on ground floor, it tends to be noisy, and takes meaningful space to really have a 'laundry handling station' (at least a sink, cupboard or 2)

 

I have provisioned space and plumbing for washing machines on every floor though, should I change my mind..

4 hours ago, dpmiller said:

Are you actually allowed (by your DNO) to have you meters such a comvoluted journey from the front of the house?

 

Very good question! I will need to look into that. Thank you.

4 hours ago, tonyshouse said:

I have a basement with plant room for MVHR , central vac, rainwater cistron solar PV, consumer unit ,

 

Do you by any chance have a more detailed specification you can show me? I'd love to know size of your plant, maybe brands, pipes etc?

4 hours ago, tonyshouse said:

no spa though but office and gams room 

 

Yeah honestly the spa, well, it actually would be quite nice for us I think but I really just put it in there as a reflection that - as far as I can tell -  we have some left to create a small-ish room. I doubt we'll actually install everything on day 1..... which is an interesting point, not sure if we can get a spa tub down into the basement after everything is sealed up and in place... 

4 hours ago, Nickfromwales said:

DNO will allow

Any DNO? Or yours specifically? 

4 hours ago, Nickfromwales said:

you a max of 3m of exposed service / supply cable after it enters the house.

 

 

4 hours ago, Nickfromwales said:

So unless that cable is coming in through a sealed and watertight penetration they’ll likely refuse to bring it in elsewhere

But can this be from anywhere? Or is it 'front door'? I *might* be able to squeeze into that 3m limit if I am somewhat lucky by designing indeed that penetration into my basement. 

 

4 hours ago, Nickfromwales said:

and allow the cable to traverse the dwelling to any useful extent. I got away with 5m or so once by going through a 32mm galv conduit and burying that in the centre of a 500mm ceiling void of a basement flat. It helped that the lads installing it were very young. 

 

Very useful info, but sounds like a bit of a gamble how can I ask my DNO without waking sleeping dogs?

4 hours ago, Nickfromwales said:

Oh, and have the plant wherever you want, it’s not much more work to pull the cables or pipes to where they terminate, but it is nice to get the plumbing eg cylinder / manifolds together. Nice, but by no means essential or discernibly money-saving afaic. 

 

Thanks, good info!

4 hours ago, Nickfromwales said:

BUT!! Have the basement anyway!! What a fantastic use of the footprint of the property,

Some people say that my plot (15x30) is being overdeveloped by having the amount of space I'm fitting in there. (12x12ish footprint, on which I'm stacking about 280m2 ground/1st, 50ish loft (2.3m high ceiling), and now 25ish basement..

4 hours ago, Nickfromwales said:

and some great extra space. I’d have a basement at a drop of a hat, pennies allowing of course. 

 

That's another one but I'm being told I should be able to keep the 'extra price' for the basement (vs just a foundation) under 1500/sqm.. fair? unrealistic?

 

[joth]

1 hour ago, puntloos said:

Very useful info, but sounds like a bit of a gamble how can I ask my DNO without waking sleeping dogs?

 

This is immaterial to the decision to build a basement, surely? If they will put it there, great, but if won't put the meter there, fine, they'll put it somewhere else, and then you run a thick length of SWA from the meter into the consumer unit etc which can still be wherever you want it to be.

 

 

Edited July 26, 2021 by joth

[tonyshouse]

I have a BEAM central vac, diy recycled rainwater system, Genvex  MVHR  some pics and info on my website 

 

 

[Bitpipe]

Our basement has a plant room, 3m x 1.6m. Contains all the power distribution (meter is in kiosk outside), solar PV termination,  UVC, MVHR (Vent Axia Sentinel +), BT master socket, water main entry and gas boiler. Also handy space to store tools and the like inside. Rest of basement (100m2) is divided into 4 rooms: gym, den for each kid and a TBC room currently full of boxes 

 

Nice to have everything in one spot and I think the plumber & electrician appreciated not  having to do all their work in a crawl space under stairs etc. My data & tv distribution is in loft as that's where we thought the telecoms were coming in originally.

 

Note that if you're having a lot of wet services in your basement then you need a strategy to get water from there to ground level drainage. We have a condensate pump for the boiler and MVHR, UVC has a G3 complaint vent to the stairwell outside.

[Thorfun]

do you not need a second form of escape from a basement? I certainly did.

[Bitpipe]

1 hour ago, Thorfun said:

do you not need a second form of escape from a basement? I certainly did.

 

As did I but BC said that a sprinkler system would have sufficed also.