OUR TECHNOLOGY INFORMATION GUIDE
Home Cinema
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You could say that a home cinema is a home improvement, well if you having a full blown room built from scratch then that would be the case. But you may just want to inset your flat screen TV into the wall, or have a more bespoke arrangement that creates storage for all your DVD's and TV systems all in one place.
Whatever your aspirations are we can pretty much build it for you no problem, the one below has been designed to fill a full wall that accounts for a 60 inch TV enough room for about 250 DVD's the Surround System, Skybox and PlayStation. The connectivity of the design allows for direct connection of the phone line which improves broadband streaming and with multiple connections in and out signal strength is magnified around the rest of the home. The design below also allows for the concealment of the radiators under the windows, and the creation of feature illuminated boxes in which to showcase items of interest. We can even install completely hidden speaker systems that are behind the walls, and virtually anything is possible, so if you are interested in having a full blown home cinema, or something more bespoke call us to arrange a survey. |
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Low Voltage Lighting
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Any home nowadays will have at least a few low energy bulbs stuck here and there in an attempt to reduce the bill. However, there is a new generation of bulbs and fittings that can really make a difference to your consumption as save you some hard cash.
The biggest improvement is to spot light bulbs now readily available at ever dropping prices, the new LED’s can be purchased in warm or white light, and as they describe the white light is a real bright white light, while the warm light is reminiscent of yellow candle light. Both bulbs give a different feeling to any room when used, one a warm cosy feel while the other gives that modern crisp feel but a colder feeling at the same time. So what is the big deal, well if you have a house which has a lot of spotlights and you have not yet changed them there has never been a better time, it’s only a few years ago that you needed to change a lot of the fittings as it was the only way to downsize the bulbs, which was a costly affair as each fitting was about £25 plus installation each. But now you can just buy the bulbs and save your money, which I have seen for as little as £1.99 depending on the type and size. It also means in new builds; it will be much easier to design a lighting system that can handle multiple spot lights, as before each circuit of lights could be no more than 1150 watts, which meant that you might have three, four or even five lighting circuits for just the downstairs. Now with the new low voltage bulbs only being 3/5 watts each against 25/30 or 50 watts the running of miles of extra cable and having massive consumer units to handle all the extra circuits are a thing of the past. |
Heat Pumps
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All green ecological and sustainable buildings need to prove in the design that it can reduce the heating demand by the quality of the building fabric, but it is also a requirement to use heating systems that reduce CO2 emissions.
Heat pumps are not a new invention, they have been around a long time and used for years in the countries of northern Europe and other parts of the world. Its only because of Global warming and the various treaties we have signed up to that these and other green machines are being installed across the UK. Heat pumps come in various forms, such as geothermal which draws heat from the ground or air source which draws heat from the air, which when you think of our climate, all sounds a bit crazy, but it actually compresses the air which creates heat, and even on the coldest of days it will still do its job. |
Air source heat pumps don’t create as much heat as geothermal systems and both are better used with underfloor heating systems and require larger than normal radiators due to the lower temperatures they produce, additional heat can be obtained by the inclusion of a boiler which works by taking the already heated water and just giving it a boost, just like a kettle takes longer to boil water from the tap when it is cold, but subsequent boiling of the same kettle is quicker.
This means that you are only using a fraction of the energy any old fashioned boiler system would use. Geothermal heat pumps require either a bore hole to be drilled down into the ground which can be a very mucky affair, or long pipes run in trenches and backfilled, the latter requiring a rather large garden. |
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On the other hand, air source heat pumps are the size of a big air conditioning system and just require the pipework to the house, they are a lot easier to install and considerably much cheaper and range in price from about £7,000 to £12,000 for a domestic home.
The only drawback with them to me is the size of the radiators in the upstairs rooms, but if like me would not want to live with that, then you do have the option of running underfloor heating upstairs as well which works best on a concreate beam and block floor, this can be done to timber floors but it’s quite labour intensive. Generally, in conjunction with Air sourced heat pumps the hot water supply is via large water cylinder which like conventional systems are first warmed by the heating pipes and boosted by immersion heating elements, these tanks nowadays are extremely good at holding the heat and a come in super large sizes as when it’s gone it will take some to re heat, so if you have a large family you may have to either install two tanks or just get a good bath time rotor working, or install a larger bath for communal bathing, which did work for the Romans. This is only a very general guide to what can be achieved as every system needs to be specifically designed for the home or commercial premises it is going to heat, and requires a lot of factors being taken into account for it to work at its optimum performance. Installing this type of technology can attract payback via the Governments Green Deal scheme which is well worth looking into, as any way you can save your hard earned cash has got to be a good thing. If you would like more information on this subject please just drop us a line as we would love to hear from you. |
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