Other New House - Essential gadgets - Discussion/Ideas/Advice

Ah right but why the solar tiles are not as good as these panels? same principle isn't it?

Haha I will be dreaming about wine-cellar now .
I am working on the design and layout of the house and will post some CAD design when its done. Be advised I am quite new to CAD!!

 

I have visions of double glazed windows with car windscreen wipers on them now.

 

Several things; the cost per area is higher, the cost of installation is higher, more connections = more chance of installation err or something going wrong in the long term. Oh and the tiles look twee...

 

These exist. Neff make them.

 

One thing I have always wanted to have is rather than solar or wind power, I want to live right next to a stream/burn and setup a water wheel. As long as there is enough force you could generate quite a substantial amount of energy 24x7 if you routed the water correctly and had a decent drop.

 

Oh man I want to live in a watermill. It'd be the best thing ever - I've always wanted one! Can you imagine all of that free electricity, too? GADGETS!!

 

Ground source heat pump is definitely a great shout (they are more efficient than air source heat pumps -- and you can always add air source pumps later -- ground source heat pumps should be installed as part of the groundworks) -- in addition to good insulation (my house is purely underfloor heating, and not even that much of it as far as I can tell). That's roughly 20-30% of your energy costs cut to a 1/3 of what they were. I'd be somewhat more sceptical about solar panels, I guess that depends on where you live -- definitely won't hurt but not the most cost efficient. (We also have an active ventilation system which prewarms incoming air from outgoing air to avoid heat loss from ventilation, although ours is a bit under-dimensioned meaning we still occasionally have to open windows.)

Electric outside blinds are also cool, ours are manual though so we always have to remember to put them down in the morning if we'll be away (huge south facing windows + sun = lots of heat).

 

Water wheel not going to happen! but it is lots of free energy.

Ground source heat pump has mixed reviews so was not sure about it. It will cost around £15k to set it up!

Another underfloor heating vote!! is it that good??

 

It can be bloody expensive to run!

 

Even though the house is well insulated? with some intelligent tech

 

With regards to cabling CAT6, you want purple coloured LSF cabling - it's a special low smoke and fume cable designed for things like aircraft and offshore. It doesn't burn well, and the little smoke that is produced is relatively harmless compared to what else burns in a fire. PM me if you want a picture, I should have some kicking round somewhere.

Security - buy two of that giant dog that has been doing the rounds on the Internet! In all seriousness, get a decent security system from a specialist. Someone like ADT should be able to help you with what you are looking for.

Tarka - you can do it, but putting a waterwheel or turbine in is difficult and then you run then risk of what has happened to some of the homes in our area in recent years. A good book is Small Scale Water Power by Dermot McGuigan. It doesn't have a lot in it, but it should give you a good overview of what to look for (I looked into this when we covered turbines in engineering - Pelton is the best, but it's difficult to implement)

A big garage with lots of storage if you can, it's amazing how much yad we can produce with boxes and such like. Also, lots of storage in the bedroom and living areas, as it's easy to leave cupboards empty and hard to cramp more stuff in.

If you are going to be living somewhere remote, get an Aga. If it runs on oil then you have something to keep you warm when the power goes out in the coldest winter for 50 years.

Hope this helps
Enterobsidian

 

No I am sure that if you get the insulation and temperature management done properly that it will be ok.

 

Interesting,

We are just about to complete on our new house in September, after which we are completely remodelling.

As it stands right now we are looking to do the following:

Double storey side extension
Loft conversion
Basement
Outhouse
and if I can get planning to agree 1st floor extension to the rear.

Just working through my tech want lists at the moment.

 

Will you have a budget for lighting controls? If so it is definitely worth putting a network port in the electrical cupboard / next to the breaker board for Wi-Fi based access

 

Right now my rough list is

Media storage server
Open PBX system
X10 control
Centrally managed wireless
Esx host for my dev stuff
Xbmc devices in the master bedrooms and living rooms
Backup box in the outhouse
Network Security cameras
Thinking solar panels on the main house and outhouse
Couple of android tablets for control
Putting in multiple sky / virgin boxes so didn't think a PVR is worth it

List is growing rapidly.

Were hoping that we will be here for the next 20 years so the budget is pretty healthy

 

enterobsidian: some good points and info there

nimbu: The list just grows forever.... I am just gathering information at the moment but it seems the more I look around the list just keeps growing... Hopefully by the end of this exercise I will have enough knowledge to do it once without cutting corners. Would you mind if I send you a PM for some guidance? Thanks.

 

Sure no problems shah.

I have a meeting with the architect on friday so quite excited about that. Also currently working on building proof of concepts for the following as im off work for a week:

Fusion based XBMC device (i say device but its a mini itx pc, just trying to make it as wife and parents acceptable as possible)
About to order a Telephoney card to get an openpbx box up and running.
Attempting to get WDS to remote boot the windows client recovery disk and perform a restore. (just for fun really!)

 

Thanks nimbu. PM sent.

Yes planning is the exciting bit then the stress kicks in

Anyone has experience of blinds within the double glazed windows?

 

No however, I remember hearing about window systems that when you apply a current the window blacks out. After friday I will be looking for that!

 

Those windows are expensive!!!