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Its been pretty good overall. I have had some issues with it not charging and had to reset the POE power but the overall combination of a Loxone managed tablet using POE is good.

Thanks Jim. We wanted very clean lines which is why we wanted UFH. Also using the Loxone light switches the one switch controls music, lights, blinds and is a thermostat. I am also considering a hidden door to my home office ;-)

Thanks, we are really pleased how it is coming together, just wish I was a little bit faster. Jobs I assume will take a day seem to take 3! Looks like the flooring will be after Christmas and they need the heating off for a week so may have to move out for a few days.

Lol, Do you not like our camping table? It has served us well over the last year. Our dining table is also a very minimal glass one but also very heavy so we only want to move it once after teh floor has been laid. Glad you are enjoying following and thank you so much for your comments

It will be interesting to see how Thread/matter expands over time. I have been using home automation for many years including X10 (powerline), Zwave and Zigbee. I have a 1Home gatewaybetween Loxone and Matter but there is very little that really works so far. Somfy will support Matter via the Tahoma switch but have said that the Zigbee motors will not be upgraded to support Thread. The blinds are going to be quite an investment as we need 13 so we want to make sure we make the right decision. I will be doing an update on "Living with Loxone" shortly but we are only really starting to see what we can do with it and the frustrations of presence detection. Overall its pretty solid so far and the multi room audio is pretty good. We went that route rather than Sonos as it integrates into the alarm. All hell breaks loose when then alarm is triggered!

I did consider using the Lxone valves but the original version had a poor reputation for reliability. I noticed they only just announced a new version and use the words durability and strenght quite a lot. Loxone partners I spoke to suggested a 10% failure rate. Having seen that with an air source heat pump most of the loops are open most of the time so I may well actually just remove the valve heads and run fully open. The control is all in Loxone as Loxone controls the current valve heads using the relay modules and it seems to work well. The Heatmiser wiring centre is just used as a junction box.

@@JurassicJungle But with UFH relay is all you need. You don't need the 0-100 control tbh

@@s31teg Not sure what you mean. The relays are controlling the zone valves (but we may remove them) the ASHP control is via Modbus with Loxone defining the required water flow temperature. That seems to be working very well.

@@JurassicJungle If it works then all good.

I did consider the KLF200 but as far as I am aware it only controls Velux and not the Somfy blinds I will probably use. The KLF would also need 10 relays in my Loxone panel or using Home Assistant or Loxberry. I will have 13 power operated blinds which could require another 26 relays. If using Tahoma does not work (we hope it does as it is being used with control4, Creston etc) we can still go relays as a backup plan but I would have to add a 3rd relay module to give me that 39 required. The Somfy unit DOES talk to Homeassistant with no issues at all so thats another alternative. Ideally I would like to avoid too many links between different platforms as there is always the risk that a software update somewhere will break functionality.

@@JurassicJungle It's very old school using relays. Why not just use a zigbee motor then you can run zigbee2mqtt on a docker and easy to do the data exchange with tags. I used hardwired motors but this required lots of 0 voltage switches which i made with x2 pokeys and passing the control words over the network to trigger the relevant outputs. tbh well over complicated and if I was to do it again would use a zigbee or another wireless option.

@@s31teg I am yet to press the button om buying the blind motors as there does not seem to be a perfect option. My preference is to use the new Somfy 30 24V Zigbee motor as I think that will be more open and future proof. I don't want wireless as the batteries will need to be charged and replaced after 5 or so years. I have run 4 core mains flex to each window so that I could use a mains motor but ideally just power the 24v DC using spare capacity from the Loxone panel. I would have liked a native Loxone control without having another gateway ideally but Zigbee seems to be safest next option. My integrator is confident that he can get control from a virtual device into the Somfy API as that can control Velux and Somfy Zigbee blinds. I have had a play but it's beyond my skills. I have been able to connect Home assistant to Somfy and control it OK but I think that is currently a cloud connection. The choice of valves and blinds has been the most difficult on this project. I was also considering going almost fully 24V lighting at one point but it restricted what I could do so I dropped that idea and used a combination of dimmers and relays for most lighting control. I have 4 RGBW units that I will be using.

We did consider it and will be having a grey LVT floor coving so it would not look too different. The floor screed company and builder did not look keen on us using a polished concrete floor and it was not clear if the Chemscreed we used was suitable. As you say it would have been better for the ufh

Hi Tom. The system was designed for a max of 45C flow temperature. We had lots of debate about pipe spacing, we went with 150mm as going tighter made pipe layout more difficult and added larger manifolds as more loops are required. We are going into our first winter with the pump and My automation system is working well with the heat pump. We are seeing flow temperatures of just 27/28C at the moment but its not that cold. We were very dissapointed with the hot water temperature to start with but found we had a faulty 3 way valve so when heating water we were also heating the house via the UFH. Now that is fixed it seems to be working very well. I will add a video update on this soon but really need to wait until the spring to be able to say if it is working as we hoped.

I agree with the height issues with a warm roof, we were OK on height. Gapotape is a great product to work with but there is no competition and it does add up to quite a lot of money, even worse with a pitched roof install like ours. Its hard to calculate what the level of improvement is in financial terms and if that investment is worth it. I like the approach that Robin Clevitt takes, he spaces timber at just over 400 so that he gets no waste from a 1200mm PIT sheet and also make sure they are all evenly spaced meaning he can install much faster with no waste. Our timbers were all over the place with lots of narrow sections probably caused by support for the roof lights, that resulted in needed much more gapotape. We need to work to much better levels of detailing and consider the impacts on each job on the following trades.

@@JurassicJungle I was told by a builder/architect that would install the insulation at the same time as the rafters. eg put the insulation up against a rafter then hammer another rafter against the insulation. In reality it would not work as you cannot put screws in the joist hangers on the insulation side. If only rockwool had the R values to make it an alternative as it's so easy to install. I still think hot roofs are best (lots of reasons) and you should get height allowances for using the system.

Thanks Norman, I think you are right and I may have spent a lot on relays that I don't need but its easy enough for me to just remove the heads. It looks like my system keeps them open all of the time that it requests heat at the moment. Loxone is currently set to do the weather comp and send a desired water flow temperature to the ASHP. The circulation pump is activated by the buffer temperature turning on at 25C. It just isnt cold enough to do any tuning yet as the flow temperatures are very low. I think its useful for me to be able to see the temperature of all of the rooms as that will help me tune things. I have a couple of rooms that are not warming up enough at the moment, both the only external walls of the original construction with just a 50mm cavity, the rest of the roosm have a 150mm cavity with 140mm of insulation. The UFH design did have the heat loss calculations for each room so I had assumed the flow rates would be correct but may need to increase the flow to these 2 rooms. We are not fully insulated yet either as we have no loft insulation and I plan to clad the old external walls and add a little external insulation there which should help. We don't expect to have much of an issue with thermal gain, the main areas of glass are North facing so at least we wont have that issue. Loxone can take control of that to circulate water around the rooms should that be the case.

@@JurassicJungle Having the rooms instrumented up will certainly help fine tune your curve, especially once you have the fabric complete. It’s a very slow system (the house) and with low temperature heating there is just no need for ‘fast’ controls.

Hi, Its a future automation panel. It was supplied by Hugh at @thamesvalleyautomation3217 . Hugh built the panel off site and connected it to our site wiring.

Hi, I find chatgpt a useful tool but would not trust it 100%, still useful for iterative questions. If you are extending an exisiting property the regulations are less strict than a complete new build so I think the lesser level would apply. We had the decision to exceed what we were asked to do, indeed I think we exceeded then minimum new build regulations in some areas of insulation. From my experience of homes with a bedroom above the garage they are often colder than the rest of the house so I would add more insulation under the floor and pay attention to air gaps that could bring thermal bridges. You will have to use fire board or double board the garage ceiling if there are rooms above. Why not try chatGPT and see what answer you get (but don't trust it, always chedk with building control).

Hi Steve, Not sure where you are based but given notice we would be very happy we welcome you to visit the project. Hugh has been great and I think he knew from the start I was a "special" customer. Hugh has been really great to work with and I not hesitate to recommend him to others.I think his experience of working at Loxone and seeing the challenges that Loxone partners has gives him better perspective. @thamesvalleyautomation

Hi Andrew, I hope you find some of the videos useful. We have gone way beyond what most would do for a renovation, some of it for environmental or economic reasons and others more for entertainment. We have no plans to sell but I do wonder what buyers would think if f all the technology in particular the Loxone system. It could be made a bit more dumb reasonably easily. We still have a lot to do setting that all up but I plan several videos on living with the technologies and if I think they were worth it. Best of luck with your project.

Hi Howard, I wish I had built the roof my self as I would have done the same assuming it met with the structural needs. We didn't have the room to fit too much more below the rafters as we have a very low pitch. I think if I did it again I would fir a second layer of PIR and then plasterboard rather than the expensive insulated plasterboard sheets. Glad you enjoyed the video, I am trying to share the lessons I have learnt to save others the same pain.

I guess if you leave a laege enough gap you can get foam in but its hard to ensure you fill the entire space fully with a 100mm board. We used foam at the eaves based on suggestions by Steve Roofer and it worked very well in an area where we had little choice to do anything else. The foam can get quite messy. I am not sure I trust some of the answered ChatGPT gives me but it absolutley makes sense to fit the insulation as tight as you can.

It is not a cheap product, I think we used about £800 worth to insulate our living space and hall. I struggled to find solid details of the difference it would make over poorly fitted or even well fitted PIR. As you saw our insulation had been fitted badly and we have an air source heat pump so wanted to do the best we possibly could to ensure a warm and efficient home. We will never know if it was worth fitting. That said I do like it as a product and it just felt right fiting the PIR that way, its a shame there is no competition as far as I am aware to help level up market prices.

@@JurassicJungle don’t get me wrong, I’m erring on the side of using it for my renovation

@@CivilisedMuffin Dont forget the discount code RC2023 for a 10% discount

There are so many skills and techniques used across renovation work that any tradesmen will have a view on, but you can hit a nerve when you venture into discussing standards of installation, an example being insulation! I’ve had many conversations over many topics, with: ‘never had a problem’ being a typical response. We learn all of this on our journey, which can be incredibly upsetting (let’s face it). So it hands us a dilemma how to proceed. I think you’ve made the right calls. No-one teaches us this stuff. To be fair the trades have a job to do and assign so much time and cost of materials and tbh if you wanted a particular standard then you should have specified it. Ha! I could go on forever, so many examples of workmanship that could be better. You’ve done well, and it looks fabulous.

​@@AndrewWardle-d8q Thanks Andrew, I fully agree on the time it takes, would a trade get the job if he quoted to do things to such detail? I come from a more a workplace that demanded more precision and I am sure i do things to too high an accuracy at times. I have some brick players on site at the moment who call me Mr millimetre! The problem is that some things do need to be done better than they are. My other poor example (see my other video) was a 6m steel with a drop of 18mm across its width. That took me several days to try and box in square and make it look as true as I could. I really should not have had to do that.

I would never take what ChatGPT puts out as 100% the truth but I have found it a very useful tool to do iterative research. When I used it to compare different U values and the potential impact on heating cost it did provide me all of the calculations it had used so I could at least go back to the source. I will admit that in this case I did not ask it for proof of the calculations of losses of 20% and 50%. I have since gone back and pushed it further. It reminds me a bit of some IT certification exams I sat that were clearly produced by looking at marketing material (as chat GPT probably does) rather than the knowledge of someone that actually uses the product. I failed a certification test once but completely disagreed with the answers that the certification said were right. At the end of the day an AI model is only ever going to be as good as they data that it uses and it will completely trust that data while a human would take statements in marketing material as a hyped sales message.

I wish you the best of luck, I don't do wet trades like bricklaying or plastering but I will have a go at most other things. I am learing fast, UA-cam is so handy for tips from people that have done these jobs many times before.

Hi Tim, I don't disagree but in my situation the project is classed as a refurbishment rather than a new build so the regulations are lower and I assum the inspection less. I asked the architect to exceed part L rather than just meet current standards but bulding control would only inspect to what I have to do rather than what I asked for. another lesson for me is that the architect just specified a build structure for the various elements to meet a given U value and he didn't provide any detailed drawings for how that should be implemented. I have 2 areas in my roof construction where this has caused an issue and I have just had to do the best that I can. Our new roof area has a low pitch of abour 22deg which was too low for the tiles used on the original house so we ended up having to replace the entire roof. THe room has a glass gable end but the central steel was so low there was little space for any insulation. I have boxed the steel in either side and used foam to fill any gaps but I could only get 25mm of unsulation underneath. The final place was the eaves where the low pitch and extra thick walls with a 150mm cavity left little space for the insulation from the roof to meet with the unsulation in the cavity. If this were a new build I would hope inspections would be better and a blower test be required. I may do one later to see if I can fix as many leaks as I can. I did remove all of that poor insulation and refitted it so we are hoping we wont be cold, lets see what happens over the coming weeks.

Thanks so much for the feedback. We are trying to do the right thing but one area I know I have messed up is service voids into the loft. I have 3 locations currently open from a cupboard upwards with about .5m square each. They all have pipes and cables so difficult to seal. I will box off and board as best as I can and then probably foam to try and seal. I plan to use my FLIR camera to help and see if I make a good job of it. If you have not been I would highly recommend the self build centre in Swidon as they have all sorts of suppliers there that you can talk to on the open weekends ( I think there is one very soon). I don't envy you the job on an older property as you have to take so much care to allow it to breathe as you say. I think we should have demolished our bungalow and just build new, the VAT savings would probably have covered the extra cost and we would have a new house rather than 80% of a new house. I wish you the best of luck with your build.

@@JurassicJungle Yes, Ive got service voids to block up as well ... Im just trying not to think about them until I need to. Ive thought a lot about going to that self build centre, but just not got round to organising a visit yet. Yes, the old house thing is a fair old pain. I've designed the wall and roof insulation to be a breathable system , even though Ive not really settled for an internal board yet , and we are going MVHR (zendher probably) and airtight with mainly the proclima stuff. We have a GSHP so UFH all downstairs for which I keep changing the floor build up design - I guess thats the problem trying to mostly do it yourself. O, and I have seen your videos before... when ive been mulling over smart home stuff. I might go KNX just to try and future proof the install - I mean , not really making it easy for myself there

@@FriendlyEngineer The Loxone thing or KNX is a bit of a leap of faith in some ways but it could be swapped out with something much simpler. I used KNX cable to all of thw switches so it would be possible (but painful) to replace Loxone with something else if I needed to. I do like the flexibility of supply of KNX and its resilience of not needing a central server to run but my understanding is that makes seting it up a bit more complex. I saw a nice setup at the Swindon self build centre that used KNX but also a small central unit that discovered everything and made it super easy to setup. It didnt have the ability to do complex stuff like I had to link the ASHP and Solar but there is a strong argument not to do that for the sake of simplicity.

Hi Norman, You are right it took us a long time to redo the roof, I think probably 2 weeks by the time we removed it all and the battens and recut it with the great Festool saw. We think it was well worth the effort but I can see the tape and time would cost thousands more. Robin takes time to space timber at 400mm to reduce waste of PIR but we had to work with what we had. We don't think we could have done more. I fully agree on where do you draw the line, we had that issue with Windows with costs for the full project varying by as much as £40k! I need to do an update on the ASHP. We had heat loss done by BG with long site survey and remotely with CBHeating. Both came to similar numbers of around 6kW loss. We have also installed MVHR. Our initial goal was to be as air tight as possible and in lots of areas I think we have done well. I paid a lot of attention to window and door openings ensuring all cavities were closed. I wanted to render internal walls but just could not find anyone prepared to do it so we have used dot and dab. My biggest issue is the service voids that I have going into the loft, there are 3 of them with a total area of about .5m square. They have lots of cables and pipes going through them up to the loft so I need to work out how I make that as airtight as possible. I am not certain how to tackle it but will probably box off as much as i can and then use foam or something to block the rest. I have a FLIR camera so will be able to see lower temperature air movement and continue to try and improve it. I may wait and cover the pump and heating once we know its working properly as last winter we were nothing like airtight. We think it may have a faulty valve at the moment as water takes ages to heat (we did expect it to be slow) and hot water is going to the UFH manifolds even with the heating off. I don't think we will do a blower test as I am not sure I want to know the answer.

@@JurassicJungle CB heating is a very good company with a good reputation. BG not so much. Your issue is definitely a faulty valve and is an easy and cheap fix. One advantage of pressurising the building during a door air blower test is- it helps identify the multitude of small leaks that can add up to a ‘barn door’ - the empirical value of the ACH is a mute point as you already have the ASHP sized and installed.

@@normanboyes4983 It was CB Heating we went with and I am very happy overall. They assigned a local installer who I was able to work with on the UFH install. Someone is coming next week to look at the valve. I have my Loxone system connected to the pump via Modbus so will have to see how well that works oor if I just adjust flow rates and use standard weather compensation. Loxone has the ability to do the weather comp itself but I may just be making things too complicated. I am finding the control of ASHP a bit more difficult to difficult to diagnose, with gas there is either a call for heat or not. Heating water in particular has different logic to gas, the Daikin by default does not reheat water when you use it until the next schedule time. We have ended up using the immersion boost way to often but that could be caused by the faulty valve. Thankfully we have solar and a battery so I am at least using cheap rate power for the immersion. Hopfully that will be sorted next week.

Hi David, To be honest thats the way it had been started so we continued with the same build up. The architect specified the construction of 100mm between rafters and then the 72.5mm insulated board (60mm pir). With that construction where can you put the VCL if it doesn't go behind the insulated plasterboard? It would have been very tricky to install it behind the 100mm PIR as it would very likely be damaged when installing the insulation between the rafters. If we were doing this again I don't think I would use insulated plasterboard, it would have been much easier to overboard with sheets of PIR then put the VCL on the front of that before adding standard plaster board.

Thanks for your comments, I didn’t want this video to look like a complaint or having a go at builders. I think my builder is a decent guy and generally does smaller extensions with happy customers. I wanted something much more and beyond what building control demands for a renovation. A fair bit of what he did was OK but it was things like steels not level that really make me unhappy. I have spent literally weeks trying to recover things that were not level or not finished to anything like the quality I would be happy with and that just shouldn’t need to happen. I think the root of a number of my challenges was the Builder, SE and architect not really talking to each other. I didn’t realise the compromises the builder was making that have made my life so much harder. That said I was a difficult client as I wanted to do most of the second fix myself including installing MVHR and all of my automation system which probably got in the way of the builder doing things in a time scale he wanted to.

@@JurassicJungle I too was considered a difficult client, however, don't fall for that excuse for others inability or unwillingness or their personal demons to deliver the level of finish your plans ask for. Afterall you are the person paying for the project and you are employing them and not the other way around. Our journey is still progressing almost 18months on, some 9months longer than it should have taken. The one aspect that we never expected to encounter came to light when more than one member of the builders team came back from the portaloo with a bloody nose. This above all else was the root cause of half the issues we had and why we ultimately needed to cut the cord. Keep smiling.

That sounds an interesting project, how will you keep it square if you just fit with adhesive and how will you fix anything securely to the walls later? Its not too hard to cut PIR straight but I did buy a Festool insulation saw which I will sell when I finish the build. It cuts a very nice clean edge. The whole point of Gapotape is that it can fill the gaps that are uneven or chnage over time so designed to fit bewteen timbers that will move during seasonal changes or were not stright in the first place. I don't think it would help much butting sheets together. I have not used Froth Pak but have used quite a few tins of foam!

@@JurassicJungle I am using a $30 jigsaw with the "BOSCH T313AW3" ($11 on amazon) blades. So far I have made 18 4 ft cuts on my first blade. It has started getting some buildup, but still cuts well. It cuts foam at about the same speed as a circular saw cuts wood. I am using factory seconds (priced at 20% of retail, I have 4ftx8ftx32ft of foam) for my rigid foam board, and I think that the reason it is factory seconds is that the cutter was mis-aligned so I have 2 parallel edges instead of 4. The non square edge is about 1/2 inch off on both ends, well within tolerance for my use. I am using the welded steel seams of the shipping container for alignment. I am using a 6ft 1x4 to create the gaps that I will then fill later.

Thanks Luke. We had coach bolts as well. I cut them back as close as I could and most were at the rear of the insulation so we just hammered them back to sink into the back of the PIR. The problem if you hammer back just PIR without gapotape is that it can cause the PIR to crack and break up. Our Gapotape still needed a tap with a mallet and a piece of wood but the foam of the tape gives a bit rather than stressing the PIR. Overall the gapotape for my project was about £800, we will never know if it was really worth it but I felt much happier with the job. We do plan to fit insulation in the reveals of the Velux and they have the Velux foam collars at the top, thats this weeks job. We used insulated plasterboard with 60mm of insulation in front of the rafters as this is what had been specified. I think it may have been easier and cheaper to do what you suggest, working with the large and expensive insulated boards on a vaulted ceiling was tricky even with a lifter. We are happy that we have done the best that we can but not happy that the design from the architect and SE made life so difficult. I do wonder if the SE actually looked at the drawings some times. The ridge was in particular a challenge and we have only been able to add 25mm of PIR between the bottom of the steel and the plaster which is less than ideal. We did install the PIR and isulated board right up to the edges of the steel and used expanding foam to try and enclose it as much as possible. We were forced to do this to make it all line up with the glass gable wall. If we find we have an issued we will have to add more insulation and work out how to make the end wall look OK. We have a FLIR camera so will be paying attention to this as the days get cooler.

Hi, I didn't want this video to be negative to the building trade as there are many good tradesmen out there. I have been very disappointed with some of the elements of my build and the extra work and stress that poor build quality have caused me. Steels not installed level and poorly installed insulation are clear examples. I do suspect that the tolerances I want to work to are way tighter than most professionals would do. I do think we need to do a lot to bring build quality up to a decent standard. I was shocked to see the tolerance my windows company allowed when making windows to fit a hole they measured, there was probably 10-15mm of gap that needed foam and silicone. With hindsight I would have preferred a SIP style build when panels are made much more accurately off site.

If you are planning a warm flat roof you MUST go and look at @SteveRoofer he has some great video about how to make a flat warm roof perform better. I sent him a video of some of our challenges and he was great. I just wish he was based closer to us.

I wish I had asked more questions at the start of the project. I just trusted the architects specs. We asked for the best practical installation without understanding the cost implications. For the walls he specified a 140mm thermoclass in a 150 cavity which we found was 3x more expensive. I found the builder had not read the specs and started with 100mm cavities which I made him correct. We have 2 vaulted ceilings which I am sure have cost us way more than I thought. Looking at our spec of 160mm total pir we are just under 0.14 U it looks like the best multifoil can do on its own ( triple layer) is 0.18 U but it may have been much easier than fitting insulated plasterboard. Someone has suggested multifoil for some external insulation so will look at that. In our old loft I plan to use polyester rather than rockwool as I hate working with than and sheep’s wool is a bit too expensive.

Thanks Alan, if we can help someone else have an easier build journey that makes us happy. We wish you the best of luck with your future project.

Hi, Duncan. As our build is all single story building control advised us that we didn’t need to use fire board or double board the steels. I did specifically question them on this as I had assumed fire board would be required as well.

Nice to see you back. The problems you have had to cope with the poorly fitted steelwork are tragic. You seemed to have got round it satisfactorily. Look forward to more update videos.😀👍

@@normanboyes4983 Thanks Norman. there are quite a few areas where poor workmanship has resulted in a lot more effort to get the right finish. This steel was very annoying, the window company told the builder when they measured but the walls were up and the roof was on so it was too late to correct it. I probably try and do things to much tighter tollerances than a builder would. If I were working with a builder again I would be checking the work much more during the build.

Hi Sorry we have been so busy trying to get the house ready before the weather changes. I have recorded lots of material but need to put it together. Are there any areas you are interested in? If so I will try and do these first.

Best of luck getting your house ready soon, I'm interested on the KItchen and open plan area.

@@mezzobadr OK, cool. I have just about finished the plaster board in that area, the roof took a lot of work. I will record an update just before we plaster. The steel above my large doors was not level so it has taken me a while to work out how to correct that.

Hi Dave, I am just about to complete the commissioning and will do another update. Our old building was terrible for ventilation, there was not even a vent in the bathroom. We also found water leaks under the floor so it was pretty terrible. We would have had to fit 5 separate extractors in the renovated building. Its not difficult to install but if you are retrofitting with insulation in the loft its going to be a fiddly job. I have read that installing MVHR is you have a leaky home can be a bad idea, I assume you end up pulling in cold air in some rooms and pushing warm air out of others. We have tried to make our place airtight but currently have several service ducts open into the roof so I don't plan a blower test (not required on a renovation). I do have a thermal camera so will use that as it gets colder to go hunting for air leakage. All I can say so far is that the bathroom extractors work well and that we don't hear the system running unless its on boost. We won't really know how well it all works until we go into winter. I would get in touch with Terry at www.heatrecoverysouth.co.uk he can advise you on what sort of system may be appropriate. He supplied my system and will do the commissioning.

@@JurassicJungle Thanks for the info, I will fire off a message to that company and see what they say. I am undertaking renovations but unfortunately, I'm not doing a whole house renovation so I would have to peace meal a system together, where-by I could cap off outlets and install later. My main requirements are that I have two hot rooms currently, the oil boiler room and a switch room where my solar inverters are located. It would be great to remove the heat from these rooms to benefit others in the house in the winter, removing individual bathroom and kitchen ventilators would also nice.

Thanks for the suggestions, I plan an update but will probably wait until after the winter. I have a Daikin heat pump installed and linked that via modbus to my Loxone system. Loxone can control the ufh valves but I do understand your suggestion to just leave it all open. Loxone has login to apply weather compensation and adjust the requested flow temperature, I have also left the Daikin controls in place if it makes sense for it to just be dumb. Loxone will allow me to see the details of each room temperature over time and adjust things. I am not sure solar divert makes as much sense as it used to with current export prices and logic with octopus. I have been very happy over the summer with my total energy costs being less than £50. That includes all my car charging and loads and loads of washing for our holiday business.

It’s hard to say if solar is worth it just for an EV. We use intelligent octopus and charge at 7p most of the time, you get paid 15p to export so it makes little sense to charge the car with solar. As we have a heat pump the battery is much more interesting as we want to run at 7p or free for as much as we possibly can. My bills at the moment are about £50 a month and we are doing loads and loads of washing and drying. It will be interesting to see how winter goes.

@@JurassicJungle it would be for the house too, a proper system. But being an old stone Chapel I'm not planning on a heat pump and so our power bills aren't too bad. The cottage is totally off grid with a really fancy system that I don't pretend to fully understand..

@@snowdoniaescape I will do an update over winter, we have generated around £800 of solar so far this year from our 12 panel array. Do you have a mains supply or are you really off grid? It may be worth considering a battery as well as solar. If you are on grid and have a smart meter I would recommend Octopus. If you do move to Octopus please consider my referal code as we each earn £50 if you do so. share.octopus.energy/melon-dog-595

@@JurassicJungle at home we are on grid for electricity. But no mains gas so heating is a conundrum, oil at the moment. We've just switched to British Gas for the EV tariff but I'll try to remember you have a code if we change again I know the octopus tariff is a good deal too.

The current switches only monitor humidity but it would be very easy to add co2 as well. It’s just a bit of logic in Loxone after that. Loxone do offer a C02 sensor.

Thanks Stephen. I did used to have a Superdome HP badge on a touchscreen PC in my last kitchen, I am planning to make a hidden door to my study. I was planning to use these trendy strips of wood but a Superdome door could certainly be a talking point. I was also considering a HAL9000 model for the front of Loxone. I have bought a ladder to clean the Velux, they are centre pivot so you just swing them around 180 to clean the outside so I am good while I can still climb a ladder.

Thanks, we are glad its coming together, I just wish I cold work a bit faster.

@@JurassicJungle taking the extra time now will definitely pay off later.

I fully agree. My build is a renovation so did not actually need to comply with part L but as we were pretty much rebuilding the house I wanted to do the best I could. I will shortly post an update as what I discovered is that it probbaly doesn't matter if you spend more if the builder doesn't install the products correctly. I found this to my cost and have been refitting some of the isulation that was pretty poorly installed.

Hi Steve, when we filmed this the house was not weather proof in that area. The blocks have since dried but we had a steel we think should have been better insulated so have added some internal insulation over the steels even though building control were happy with it.

Hi, thanks it’s a good question. The pump is installed and working well. We costs in the winter were very high BUT we had many wide openings as the building was not sealed so it’s simply not fair to make a running costs comparison until next winter. I may do an update on who we bought from and why and the installation process if that would be useful. I can then follow up on costs over next winter.

Thanks again! We love the speakers and service from Peter Tyson

Thanks, we have learnt so much. What we really like is how we can use cheap 3d printing to save time and improve quality. Printed jigs for door latches has been a huge success.

Thanks for the feedback. I plan an update on our experience but may wait until next winter. Our heat pump costs were very high over winter but the house is not insulated yet and there are open holes so it’s not fair to compare. As we moved into spring and the house became more complete costs did drop considerably. I would say that the combination of ASHP, battery and solar feels a very good mix. Our average electricity cost is around 14p by making use of as much off peak energy as we can. My energy costs at the moment are typically in tens of pence per day even charging my car. We do a LOT of laundry from our holiday rentals which impacts us by several pounds a day when we have 8+ loads of washing. Our solar is not MCS registered so unfortunately we don’t get paid for any export but try to minimise that by charging the car or boosting hot water.

Hi, I am glad they have been of some assistance. 1. Our wast was a combination of an old garage floor slab and brick walls that we had demolished. I have no issues with it for the purpose that we had, we were able to adjust the size that the crusher produced and were able to crush and wheel it directly into the floor. It saved us a few thousand pounds I think. 2. We did not need to dig out the floor, the original house had a suspended wooden floor with a 500mm void. As we wanted a solid built up floor so decided it was simpler to fill that void rather than try and add new block and beam. 3. This was really just a reality of what we needed to add to build up the void from our original floor. If I were to do it again I would investigate adding thicker PIR. We added 100mm as my builder said that was what was needed I have since found I should have considered 150mm or more. I also found out about a poured polystrene insulation that I think would have been a better overall solution but not something my builder had ever worked with. 4. I am holding on judgement on the pump until after next winter. This winter the costs were very high but the building had almost zero insulation and lots of gaps. As we closed up the building and added insualtion the costs dropped very quickly. Hot water is a bit of a challenge as we only have a 210lt tank, wish I had gone for 300. The combination of Solar (we have about 4.5Kw) battery (13.5Kwh) and the heat pump is working very well indeed at the moment with electrical costs of just a pound or two per day and I am even charging my EV as part of that. I think the higher winter costs will be balanced with very low cost in the summer. Best of luck with your project.

Hi There. I am working with Hugh from Thames Valley Automation. Hugh is based near Oxford but can cover Dorset no problem. He did a pre first fix visit and will be building the panel off site before brining it here later this month to connect to all of my wiring and do the commisioning. If you have watched Loxone training videos you may well have seen Hugh as he is ex Loxone. I would certainly suggest you get in touch with Hugh and discuss your project, I would be very happy to recommend him based on my project so far. www.thamesvalleyautomation.co.uk/ @thamesvalleyautomation3217

Thats a very good question and one I was concerned about myself. The Loxone solution is pretty robust and being used for larger commercial projects so I have some confidence based on that. It can be designed to have a degree of resilience with multiple power supplies but the single point of failure is the mini server or being really specific the SD card that the mini server uses. I plan to have a spare SD card located with the server and may even buy a spare mini server. The good thing about Loxone is that it all runs local to no risk from a remote cloud service failing or the hosu not working if you have no broadband. That can happen, we had our phone line damaged and had no internet for 3 weeks! Loxone would have continued to work.

Thanks Rob, it is indeed a bit of a dilema. We wont know until next winter if we made the right choice as the build was not airtight when it was cold and we used lots of electricity just to make it comfortable to work in. I have to say that the combination of Heatpump, Solar and Battery seems to be a good choice. My bills for the last few days have been less than a pound a day, yesterday was just 30p and we are charging the car and doing several loads of washing. The heating cut back in last night when it was cooler but that battery had enough stored energy from the solar to run that.