Author: stephen (Page 14 of 61)

The carpets have arrived

March 19, 2014 / stephen

I guess this is a big day. Carpets going down. :0)

We are using low TOG (0.8) underlay because of the underfloor heating. Bizarely, the underlay is heavy, but it is about the heat transmission quality of the underlay rather than the weight of the material. The carpet is also a low TOG (1.4) carpet from the Cormar Glendale range.

As we have tried to do throughout the project, we are using local suppliers.

We should get the upstairs and a couple of rooms downstairs done over the next couple of days.

MMmmmm….I don’t think there was much room left over.

The underlay for the carpet needs to have a low TOG value to ensure that the heat from the underfloor makes it through both the underlay and the carpet. This underlay has a TOG value of 0.80. The carpet has a TOG value of 1.4 (Cormar Glendale range).

End of day 2 tiling the kitchen

March 18, 2014 / stephen

There are a few cuts to do tomorrow plus the upstands (tiled skirtings). Then we should be ready to grout these tiles on Thursday. With any luck, we might get some of the kitchen appliances in before the weekend.

The first of the kitchen tiles going down

March 17, 2014 / stephen

The first of the kitchen tiles were laid today. We hope that all the tiles will down in the kitchen by the end of the week.

It took a couple of hours to work out the best layout for the tiles, but once we start, the tiles go down very quickly.

On a less negative note, we believe that one of the three granite bowls are on their way from Spain. Unfortunately, two of them had overflows fitted 40mm from the bottom of the sink. This is no good for us as you couldn’t even stand a mug up in the sink because the overflow was so low.

With any luck, the one sink without the overflow will allow us to get the island worksurface installed towards the end of the week – hopefully, on Saturday. Godness knows when the other sinks will appear.

The first of the tiles are going down on the kitchen floor. It took John a couple of hours to work out the best way of laying the tiles.

Using a laser to lay the tiles. This ensures that the tiles are perfectly lined up.

End of day 1 and we now have a square of tiles right around the island unit. This is the quick bit. Next are the cut tiless that go around the edge of the kitchen. However, tomorrow it will be possible to walk on these tiles to access all of the kitchen.

Monitoring energy usage with Network Owl

March 14, 2014 / stephen

We have just installed a Network Owl to monitor our energy usage. This monitors the power being used on our incoming electricity supply and uploads the data to the internet. We can then monitor power usage from anywhere and (pretty much) in real time.

We have a 3 phase supply and are using a Network Owl and Owl Intuition-lc. This solution is intended for home and light commercial premises that are on a three phase supply. The hardware is under £100 and it took less than 30 minutes to set it up.

Creating an online account to view the data is a little quirky, but if you follow the instructions carefully it doesn’t take long.

Having installed a ground source heat pump, all of our heating and domestic hot water is essentially electric albeit aided by extracting heat out of the ground. So we thought it would be important to having an understanding of the amount of power that we are using. This solution looks promising and I am somewhat intrigued by the numbers. By combining the data from the Network Owl with data from our weather station and internal temperature sensors, we should be able to get a reasonable understanding of the heat performance of the house.

Once you have the network owl up and running, you can view your power usage in real time via the web. I only installed it yesterday, so it is a little sparse in terms of data.

As well as getting an overview of power usage, you can also see more detailed graphs as well as downloading the data into Excel (CSV format). Our online weather station also captures weather data as well as monitoring the internal house temperature.

This is a small device that connects to your router (Ethernet connection on the right, power on the left). It connects wirelessly to the sensor box with the three sensors that are clamped onto the incoming 3 phase supply. It then uploads the date to the internet where you can access it online.

The sensor box is installed in the meter cupboard with three sensors – one onto each of the incoming live supplies (we have a 3 phase supply). I may move the sensor box and sensors to cables inside the building as it will be warmer and kinder to the batteries (as well as improving the signal strength to the Network Owl).

The sensor clamps are very easy to install and only loosely clamp onto the cables. You just need to remember that this is a live supply that you are dealing with!

The kitchen tiles have arrived

March 11, 2014 / stephen

Despite the installation of the kitchen being delayed by two weeks, the tiles arrived today. These are due to be fitted next week once the kitchen was fitted (or not). We will go ahead and complete the tiling anyway before the kitchen worksurfaces are installed.

These have been stacked in the porch out of the way. They will be laid next week.

It took about a week between ordering these tiles and them being delivered.

This is one of the kitchen tiles laid next to the new units. These tiles are 60x60 cms and are shipped 4 in a box.

This is one of the kitchen tiles laid next to the new units. These tiles are 60×60 cms and are shipped 4 in a box.

Delays with the kitchen

March 11, 2014 / stephen

The kitchen worksurfaces were due to be installed today. I found out yesterday afternoon that there has been a delay in getting hold of the granite sink bowls. This means that the worksurfaces won’t be installed for another couple of weeks.

This sort of thing is not unusual on building projects, but is still a pain when it happens.

The electrician turned up this morning to install the appliances. These only arrive when the worksurfaces are installed. The tiler starts next week in the kitchen. While we can tile without the worksurfaces installed, no one else is going to be able to work in the kitchen while he is there.

There isn’t much we can do at this point other than roll with it. But it is a pain.

Condensation in the plant room

March 10, 2014 / stephen

We are getting quite a bit of condensation off the pipe work for the ground loops. Often the anti-freeze in the ground loops is below freezing, so this isn’t too surprising. The main issue is that the drips fall onto the electrics for the ground source heat pump, particularly the switch for the 3 phase supply. Although the switch is IP65 rated, I wouldn’t want to see it get wet over a prolonged period.

The answer has been to install 4ft of plastic guttering underneath the pipework. This catches the drips and prevents the electrics getting wet. I suspect that these drips will just evaporate once in the gutter.

The 4ft of guttering catches the drips of condensation from the pipework above. In hindsight, we probably should have thought about the location of the cabling, but we had little option at the time.

There is no point in trying to stop the condensation. We have decided to just capture the drips before they hit the electric cables.

Update on RHI

March 6, 2014 / stephen

I went to three seminars today at Ecobuild 2014 on RHI. A lot of the information that was presented in these session has been seen before. However, there were some new snippets:

The launch date for domestic RHI has still to be confirmed, however, it is expected to be Spring 2014. A number of the speakers referred to the date being finalised in the “next few weeks”;
The domestic RHI payments will be “deemed” (i.e. estimated) rather reliant on using installed meters. The estimation will be based on the calculations completed as part of the MCS installation;
There are a couple of situations were meters will be required. This is where the property is either a second home or there is an additional form of heating (e.g. gas boiler). The metered payments will only be able to adjust the payment upto the deemed value, i.e. the metering will only be used to adjust the deemed payment downwards;
Applications for RHI will be administered by Ofgem. Applications will be made on online and it is expected that applications should take 20-30 minutes to make. In many cases, the decision of the online application will be instanteous;
The applications will require details from your MCS certification as well as your green deal assessment. Hopefully, this will speed up the application process as details will be pulled in from these documents;
The government reserved the right to reduce the tariff by up to 20% should the RHI be over subscribed.

You will find more information on the Renewable Energy Association website.

Lighting circuits in the kitchen

March 4, 2014 / stephen

With our home automation kit, each room has a number of lighting circuits. These circuits can then be turned on and off independently. In addition, some of the circuits can be dimmed (as long as they are connected to a central dimmer unit).

Some areas of the house have been fairly straightforward to sort out. Others are more complex. The kitchen is a good example of where there are multiple lighting circuits – gone are the days when there just used to be a fluorescent strip in the middle of the ceiling!

We are just sorting out all of the lighting in the kitchen and I am amazed to find that we have a total of 8 lighting circuits here.

Wall lights – small rectangular lights shining up and down on the reclaimed stone;
2 sets of suspended wire lights – each with 4 x 5w bulbs. The two strips are controlled independently;
4 x LEDs under the breakfast bar;
7 x LEDs along the canopy of the tall kitchen units;
2 downlighters in the square window that separates the lounge and the kitchen;
an pendant light in the tall window;
And finally, there is a LED strip underneath the plinth of the main units. This is DMX controlled and we will be able to change the colour and the intensity (brightness) of the LED strip.

However, we don’t need 8 switches to control 8 lights (although you could if you really wanted to!). With the Loxone system, we can define scenes. A scene is a predefined set of lights. So for example, you might define an “eating” scene or a “cooking” scene. Each of these scenes might use a different combination of lights. Some of this we are going to have to set once we are living in the property. The scenes should also be set when it is dark as lighting looks completely different in daylight.

These are Collingwood lights. There are four along this wall. 1w up and 1w down. We have used the same lights in the parapet wall in the hallway so that they line up. These lights are hardly noticeable when they are not on.

Suspended wire lighting from SLV. This all runs on 12v and we can put up to 6 lights onto each pair of wires. Currently we have 4 on each.

These LED lights were installed underneath the worktop of the breakfast bar when the kitchen units were installed. Although installed by the kitchen fitters, these too are controlled by the Loxone kit.

Saxby LED downlights. These are IP65 rated and could be used outdoors. These are the same lights that we have used in the bathrooms elsewhere in the property. Each of the lights is 1w.

These two downlighters are in the square “window” between the kitchen and the lounge. They need to be pushed back up into the holes, but have been left down while the decorators are still working in this area.

A straightforward pendant light. There will be a piece of artwork here in the long term.

Ecobuild 2014

March 4, 2014 / stephen

It is Ecobuild this week in London. On Thursday, there are a couple of sessions on RHI (Renewable Heat Incentive). This is a government scheme that provides funds for those people installing renewable forms of heating. This applies to ground source heat pumps (as well as air source heat pumps).

You will find more information on RHI in previous blogs entries.

While the incentive has been in place for non-domestic use, the domestic scheme is due to launch next month. While the overall framework for the incentive is well understood, there are a number of details still to be clarified. I am hoping that the sessions at Ecobuild this week will help provide some answers.