Recent content by btgriff

I've found the Reading Draughtbusters site helpful. They have an article showing how they deal with this issue, http://readinguk.org/draughtbusters/?page_id=268

Simply changing the radiators wont result in any saving on your gas bill. If you have bigger radiators then the house gets to the required temperature quicker, but it still loses heat at the same rate. Your boiler will still burn the same amount of gas to keep the required temperature. To...

The lights are for me. I was just asking before I went and bought anything. I didn't want the cables to be seen because it would look better. I don't like cables running across the brickwork, a purely selfish reason :)

OK, looks like I will have to get lights that look good above the doors. I don't want to put deep chases in and I hadn't even thought about curtains. PJ: the push buttons only need to make a circuit - all the dimming or timer control is configured on the velbus module, see here...

Perhaps a picture will help explain it a bit better. Ideally I wanted to hide the cable which would be going up into the void. I was wondering if it is allowed to be sunk into the plaster inside. Looking at the link it appears this wouldn't be acceptable.

Hello All, I want to get some external wall lights fixed up to cover my patio area. As I do bit of computer programming for a hobby, I want the lights be connected up to a velbus home automation module so I can control them automatically (or not, or whatever I want). I just have a couple of...

Depending on your meter you can build sensors to count the pulses and therefore the gas usage. My meter was replaced with an Actaris G4 last year and this has a magnet that rotates with the dial. You can use a reed switch to detect when the magnet passes by. You will need some electronics...

There is room for another temperature sensor so I could add one to monitor the outside temperature. Then I would need to create a program to adjust the timer based on the recorded temperature. It would be neat but time is always against me :) Ben

Here's a little story about merging my computer skills with the central heating. A few months ago I got fed up with adjusting the 24 hour timer I have on my boiler. The problem is I work different shifts so every week I would need to adjust the timer for the working week and then for the...

Why don't you power your equipment from an on-line UPS. This will take all the fluctuations in the mains supply and give you a nice clean battery fed supply.