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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.

Update on the kitchen

March 1, 2014 / stephen

All of the kitchen units have been installed this week. This includes the units that make up the island unit. All of the electrics are in place as is the plumbing.

Once all the units were in place, it was a case of cutting templates for the granite worktops. The templates are cut out of hardboard and marked up with the relevant details.

Next week the worktops will be made using the templates. They will then be installed the following week – along with all of the appliances.

The appliances will be installed when the rest of the kitchen is finished off. The island unit has been wrapped up to protect it over the next week or two before the installation is finished.

All of the kitchen cupboards have been installed this week. We now have a week’s break while the granite worktops are being made before the kitchen is finished off.

This is the island unit with a hardboard template instead of a worktop. The granite worktop will be cut using the hardboard as a template.

Notes to the guys manufacturing the worktop are made on the hardboard templates.

Stove glass sooting up

February 27, 2014 / stephen

Anyone who has owned a log stove will be aware of the problems of the stove glass sooting up. Some stoves seem worse than others, but it is something that all stoves do over a period of time.

There appears to be two main causes:

Poor fuel: This usually means logs/wood that is still damp. The drier the wood the better. Logs should really be air dried for up to a year. This will get their water content down to 20-25%. If you want to be extra sure, you can use kiln dried logs. These are frequently down to about 10-15%;
Not enough air: This leads to poor combustion and smoke. This will eventually blacken the glass.

The solution seems to be:

Use the correct wood fuel;
Ensure that the fire has enough air. There are usually two vents – one allowing air in from the bottom and one allowing air from the top. Logs burn best with air from on top. Start the fire with all the vents open. Once the fire has started going, shut the bottom air off. For example with our Firebelly stove, we leave the top vent open 3/4 of a turn. This never changes. We open up the bottom vent fully when starting the fire, we let the fire burn through (this warms the chimney/flue and establishes a good draft), then we add more wood and half close the bottom vent. Once the fire is fully established, we close the bottom vent completely. The top vent is always left in the same position;
Make sure the fire is burning hot enough. We have a Stovax flue thermometer that shows the optimum temperature for the flue. This ensures that the exhaust products from the fire reach the right temperature to be burnt off. They cost about £10 and are a good investment.

All of the above works really well with our Firebelly FB1. We seem to be able to burn just about anything on it (we never put treated or painted wood on the fire) and it never soots up. The Spartherm unit (Arte 3RL) is a different story. Despite only putting kiln dried wood onto the fire, it always seems to soot up. The Spartherm glass goes black all over. While some sooting up is inevitable, this seems to happen within 1-2 hours. There is only one control on the front. This controls the air flow from underneath. There seems to be little control of the flow from above. There is also no opportunity to view the temperature, so it is difficult to tell whether it is hot enough.

We wrote to the manufacturer. Their response was to send us the manual that we already had (the same one that was supplied with the unit).

We have found the easiest way to clean it is using Stovax clear glass cleaner, but it soots up so quickly, we really avoid using it too much. It is shame since it is a nice looking unit. But we have better things to do that clean the glass everyday. The Firebelly unit is a completely different story. We have used it continually and have only had to resort to cleaning it once a month. And that is often just to take the odd black soot mark off the glass. It takes all of 5 minutes.

Stovax glass cleaner. This works a treat. It is caustic so be careful when you use it. It says to apply it liberally and leave it for 5 minutes before removing with a damp cloth. I use it sparingly and clean off within a minute or so. It is expensive, but you don’t need to use much of it.

A rather dusty Firebelly FB1 showing the top vent and the bottom vent control (the “U” shape poking out from the door underneath the glass pane). You can also see the Stovax flue thermometer in place too.

We always leave this slightly open. It provices air to the top of the fire – exactly what logs need. We fully close it and then open 3/4 of a turn. We only adjust the bottom vent.

While the glass does soot up very quickly (within a matter of 1-2 doors), the soot does clean off easily with Stovax glass cleaner.

While the glass does soot up very quickly (within a matter of 1-2 hours), the soot does clean off easily with Stovax glass cleaner.

The new kitchen has arrived…

February 25, 2014 / stephen

Although it will be a couple of weeks before it is finished, the kitchen has started to be installed today.

By the end of this week, we should have all of the base units fitted as well as the first fix electrics and plumbing. The fitters will then make up the templates for the granite worktops.

We have a gap of about a week, then the worktops and appliances are fitted. It is starting to feel like a real house now!

The new kitchen has started to be fitted today. It won’t be finished for a couple of weeks, but I reckon that we will have most of the base units installed this week.

Controlling the ground source heat

February 25, 2014 / stephen

Or rather why we aren’t controlling the ground source heat pump!

A ground source heat pump extracts heat out of the ground to heat the house. It works most effectively once the house has reached it’s target temperature. At this point, the heat pump just trickles heat into the building to ensure that it stays at the set temperature. In fact, it will often use additional energy from an immersion heater to get the house to it’s set temperature.

It can take a long time for the fabric of the house to warm up – in our case, it took a couple of weeks from a standing start. However, I still suspect that the fabric of the house is warming up and drying out. Let’s not forget that only a few months ago this building was open to the elements.

With this in mind, the NIBE engineer has told me to set the heat pump going and not to change it according to a schedule, or even when we go away on holidays. If we were away for a few days, there would be little point in turning the heating off – it would take 3-4 days to cool down and then 3-4 days to warm up. And we would probably use more energy in the process than we would if we just left it on all the time. Let’s not forget with no one here, the windows and doors stay shut and the house is well insulated. So heat loss would be a minimum.

It does, however, make sense to turn the hot water off. It only takes around an hour to generate a full tank of hot water and that is from a standing start. If the tank was full of hot water when it was turned off, it might only take 30 minutes to warm up depending on how long it had been turned off for. I need to investigate how we can achieve this. More updates later.

In terms of the other controls, we may control the secondary hot water pump (this pumps the hot water around the property to ensure that you get hot water out of the tap within a couple of seconds) and the valves for the towel rail circuits (there are two – one of the old part of the property and one for the new). It will be very straightforward to control these using the Loxone kit. We can set up schedules, over ride buttons as well as being able to access the controls remotely.

But other than that, there is little to control on the heat pump. We have installed the latest software on the heat pump and this is automatically control the flow rates of the pumps to the underfloor heating and ground loops. There are thermostats in all of the rooms that control the zone heating. It would be straightforward to replace these with temperature sensors and actuators controlled by the Loxone kit, but it would have little benefit over what is already installed (re-badged Heat Miser units from NuHeat).

Update on the Loxone kit

February 25, 2014 / stephen

We have most of the Loxone kit now in place. Our original intention was to purely use the Loxone kit to control the lighting. Since we were re-wiring the property from scratch, this was a great opportunity to do things differently. All of the lights switches are wired back to a central computer that then controls the lights. Unlike most houses in the UK, there is no direct connection between the light switch and the light – this is achieved by programming the computer. So changing what light switches do is just a case of reprogramming – no rewiring required.

We currently have around 47 lighting circuits (excluding LED strips) controlled via 27 switches (plus iPads, iPhone and laptops). Each lighting circuit may have more than one light, but all the lights are controlled together. This seems like a large number of lights, but there are 6 circuits alone in the hall (dimmable downlights, LED staircase lights, LED parapet wall lights, dimmable feature light that hangs between the porch and the hall, a set of LEDs along the foot of the stairs, and finally, a lighting circuit in a floor box that controls a lamp on the hall table). There are 4 circuits in the lounge and another 5 in the kitchen. If that sounds complicated, it gets a lot easier as one switch can be programmed to control more than one lighting circuit – you could have one switch that turns on all 6 circuits in the hall on at the same time.

In addition, there are a further 5 circuits to control the each of the extractor fans in each of the bathrooms. This means that we can set the time that the fan runs for after the light has been switched off. The timing could even be changed depending on the time of day (e.g. maybe you don’t want the extractor to come on after midnight).

There are another 6 circuits that are then used to open and close three banks of rooflights (2 in the lounge and 1 in the kitchen). These could be linked to a rain sensor or a wind sensor. In our case, the rooflights are closed when the alarm is set.

At the moment, we have all the lighting (and extractor fans) plus the rooflights controlled via the Loxone kit.

When we set out on this renovation, I thought if we could achieve the above, we would be happy. In fact, we have achieved more than I thought. So I am more than happy.

But now we have the kit in place, we try some further experiments. These include:

Integration with a Texecom alarm (e.g. using the PIR sensors to turn on lights, closing rooflights when the alarm is set);
Using outdoor proximity sensors to turn out outside floodlights (or even lighting in the house if no one is home);
Controlling access to the house using key fobs and an electronic latch release;
Controlling some elements of the heating system. We have a ground source heat pump, so there is little point controlling the output, but we can control some of the hot water pumps (we have a secondary hot water pump for part of the building).

We have managed to get this far fairly easily. There has been a little trial and error in terms of the programming, but we have got there. It is interesting to watch how visitors react to the technology – it is one of the features of the property that seems to have people talking. It will be interesting to see what happens as we add more features.

The key to all of this is keeping it simple. Any fool can make things complicated. It is much harder to make things simple. I suspect that this is where many home automation projects go wrong – they become too hard to use (except by the person that built it!). Please don’t let me fall into that trap!

Hagg Leys Farm

Page 16 of 67

Delays with the kitchen

Condensation in the plant room

Update on RHI

Lighting circuits in the kitchen

Ecobuild 2014

Update on the kitchen

Stove glass sooting up

The new kitchen has arrived…

Controlling the ground source heat

Update on the Loxone kit

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