New House First Fix Decisions

bull987654321

Hello,
I am building a 2 storey block house. I am currently getting ready for plastering inside. I have some wiring and plumbing done. I am putting in a heat recovery system and will be airtightening the house as much as possible.

I need some advice on a few issues.

1. Plumbing system pressurised or not? I am putting in a normal heating system with radiators and an oil fired boiler outside the house. I was planning on putting the boiler in the garage which would mean about 7 metres of pipe under the ground outside. But now I thinking that the heat loss would be too much, even with the insulated underground piping that can be used. I am now thinking of putting the burner on the footpath just where the pipes exit the house.

2. I am putting 3 showers in the house. I was thinking of putting an electric in the downstairs bathroom. I was thinking of putting 2 mixer showers upstairs in the ensuite and the main bathroom. I have put plywood up on the bathroom wall studs as I heard it was better to tile on than a hardwall on slab finish. Would I be better to get the mixer heads at this stage and install them before I slab the other side of the walls. Is a pump normally needed in the hotpress for these mixer showers.
What shower and pump would be recommended for this setup.

As regards the pressurised vs non pressurised, I have good height in my attic to put tanks up high and get a good head pressure.
What system would you suggest or what are the advantages of each system.

3. I am putting 2 stoves in the house also. One may heat water and the other will be just a standard stove. The chimneys are on the internal of the house and I have no external air supply yet for these. I am going to run
a 3" pipe up the side of my chimneys into the attic to draw the external air from here. I think a normal PVC pipe is OK to run up the chimney and aso through the side of the chimney wall to the side of the stove. This will then be joined to the external air pipe supplied with the stove. Should I be using a fire resistant type pipe through the chimney side wall or would it be ok to use the normal PVC pipe in this area.

The size of the stove for heating the water is probably going to be 5 kW. that would be around 3 for the room and 2 for the water. The room size is about 5m x 4mx 9 feet. I dont want the room boiling by oversizing the stove for heating the water. I was thinking of putting a 8000 btu boiler on the stove. I think it would be better to run the stove flat out and struggle to heat the room than trying to damp it down to avoid overheating.

4. I want to put some wiring in for surround sound also in my sitting rooms. They are a standard layout with a chimney breat in the middle of the wall, TV on 1 side and a door on the other side of the chimney. Couch will be on the middle of the back wall.

I was planning on using 2 core, 49x0.19 cable(1.5mm2 copper speaker cable). Would this be OK for a standard surround system. I know there is no limit to what can be spent for this but I just want to make sure that I am using a decent cable that will support a decent sytem in the future.

I was going to put the speaker cable in the 4 corners of the room, about 6 inched in from the corner and down about 18" from the ceiling. I am going to put in chases and conduit the cables down the wall. I will run a single cable to the 4 corners from my TV position beside the chimney. Should I also put a speaker on the chimney for supporting the 5.1 layout or will this be pointless as my tv will not be in the centre of the room.

I have a variey of questions here so maybe they should be split into seperate posts. Any advice on these items would be appreciated as after I plaster , it will be too late to make changes.

muffler

Just a suggestion but you may get more replies by splitting the post. Points 1, 2 and 3 could be addressed in the Plumbing & heating forum and perhaps Point 4 may be better off in the Home Entertainment Forum where you may want to select the best sub forum maybe.

We can let this sit here for a while to see what feedback you get.

cappite123

hello, i am also building a 2 story at the moment and am doing air tightness and hrv system. i am also going to install 2 stoves, one an insert stove and the other one with a back boiler to heat my downstairs radiators. i see you are going to use piping for external air coming from the attic which i think is an excellent idea. i know the stoves require external air as house will be air tight but will that do or do you need room sealed stoves as well. i ask you this as i am confused as to the actual proper method. also where are you going to bet your stoves with an external air kit

bull987654321

Hello,

I am looking at clearview stoves. The stove needs an external supply to be a room sealed stove. The air will circulate from the air inlet pipe, into the stove and then p the chimney. No air will be required from the room in order for the stove to operate. This is my understanding of it. There are plenty of posts about room sealed stoves in other posts here.

I would like to hear some feedback about my idea of running the pipe to the attic. Has anybody done this or is there any safety issues that Im forgetting about by installing the air supply this way.

Muffler, I will split the post at the end of the week if I dont get a response from the post. Thanks for the advice.