to be or not to be in smart home takeover
Gordon removes the air freshener we find a new top tip for wood screws
i discard these instructions we find the secret compartment next to the s-plan heating system and
still managed to turn this dumb thermostat into a clever smart one we use the ferrule crimping tool
oh and i love an app .good luck Gordon. Gary does a spot of plumbing we change some lights
we get an led to come on and stay on and gary's back with more plumbing top tips and that's why
i love plumbing all this and more and a special guest appearance from gary on a smart camera
so this is a house we've selected to take over in this series of videos built in 2015
already has some incredible energy efficiency features such as solar pv
and a heat recovery system but was does it lack gordon it lacks any form of control gary it's
got some incredibly dumb features and we're going to see using smart technology what we
can do to improve the house from its energy efficiency but also offer great convenience
for the owner. So should we dive in and have a look what we've got to deal with shall we
like a couple of moths drawn to an incandescent lamp me and gordon have turned up here at the
consumer unit end and having the house built in 2015 i think that was a roundabout BS7671 amendment three
of the wiring regulations when these turned to metal didn't they gordon yeah well perhaps this one just
sneaked through gary perhaps it was designed ten years before perhaps put a brick in the
ground you know and then yeah they've managed to sneak through this plastic consumer unit
yeah we're gonna have a little look at some of the interesting features that have been left behind in
this consumer unit not only that it's plastic maybe we'll add that footage at the end of the video
yeah i don't know the efixx viewers love to see inside a consumer unit so yeah but there's a
treat to stay on for we've got a burger alarm here it looks like wonky joe's installed it okay um how
smart is that burger alarm system yeah it's a big problem with bird alarm systems isn't that
they're not smart you've got one i have got one yes do you use it all the time i used it for the
first evening that was installed and unfortunately the panel that was given to me by a good friend of
mine failed in the first evening at 2 30 in the morning i was up a triple extending ladder trying
to disconnect my siren did anyone call the police no nobody came out to help me either right well
that's probably the big problem with traditional burger alarm system ones like this one here
yeah you can see the cord for it written in there very handily is they don't offer many convenience
features you don't know whether it's gary outside your house on a ladder or actually somebody
burgling your house when you're away and that's one of the areas we can look at in this videos
we put a smart system in that allows you to see what's going on in your house when you're not here
okay i also saw when i looked inside the consumer unit footage at the end we had a transformer there
for the bell system here as well is that something else we can improve yes again smart doorbells are
one of the most popular smartphone products out there so we're not just thinking about security
we're thinking about all those deliveries from an online retailer that we all get these days gary do
they come with next day delivery though gordon yeah they usually do but obviously yeah you can
have a conversation with the delivery driver using your smart doorbell and yeah tell them where to
leave the parcel instead of just abandoning it in the wheelie bin as they normally do
should we have a look at the heating system next quarter let's have a look so why you brought me
to this location then okay so this is the nerve center of the plumbing system where all the pipe
work for the hot water and the heating system comes together and yeah we're not normally a
plumbing channel on efix but it's also where most of the wiring comes together for the controls for
the heating and hot water system so what have we got here we've got two zone valves for the
heating so we've got an upstairs and a downstairs zone valve there and we've also got another zone
valve for the hot water system so obviously they switch in and out to obviously you know what's
going to take private hot water or heating but um if you've somehow wandered in here because you're
you're thinking i'm a diy and i'm going to fit a smart thermostat there's a very good reason hiding
in this cupboard while you probably will want to call an electrician you may already be there now
but it's hiding in this cover in the cupboard we're going to take a look at that now so you're
going to reveal what's under that cover it looks like somebody's already got half of it off already
for you gordon saving us a job gary but yeah so what we're expecting behind here is the s-plan
plus wiring system layout we're expecting it to be immaculately labelled careful attention to uh
plenty of wiring room so it's going to be easy to work on to retrofit the relay for a smart
thermostat good and yeah so interesting there's another fuse spur around the corner that's good
congratulations to whoever got that down there if this tank was actually in before they fitted it
okay never get back to that i yeah no okay so this is this fully labeled neatly connected s plan plus
warren system coming up yeah this is there we go you got it out there nothing like burning your arm
yeah a little explanation what's there please uh well okay so here's the wires from our
zone valves uh here's the cylinder stacked for the hot water we've probably got the
some input from the thermostats on the on the walls downstairs from the timer
upstairs or something i think they won't even put one screw in there to do it so we've got
a collection of flexible and solid core neutrals in a block there that we're gonna have to somehow
tap into so this is yeah when you buy your smart thermostat online or perhaps you see
it on the shelf all shiny and john lewis that uh yeah it looks so easy until you find
this is probably not like those diagrams you find on the internet also interesting to note in here
here's our supply for the immersion here in this tank as well now let's remember this property's
got solar pv panels on the roof and as we've seen in a previous video it's possible to fit
in solar energy diverter so instead of exporting the electricity from the solar panels we can
divert that convert it into heat and store that as in the hot water cylinder so that's
something we might want to look at so gary what are you doing here i normally look at the controls
and you get the wiring absolutely i've looked at that s plan wiring system gordon i think it's all
yours i'm in here got the boiler behind me where the cash gets burnt the only control system we've
got here is the standard time clock telling me whether the heating is on or off or whether the
hot water is on or off and then we've got a room thermostat with a rotary mechanism in order to
generate the control for the actual heating system itself so you said that simple gary but looking
at that artwork the previous owners left on the wall that doesn't look easy to set up no it looks
like there's been an ls lousy been left behind here with actually how to program this little
controller here it's simply on or off isn't it gordon it is well or you might set the time of
day but we'll look if we're going to add a smart system to this guy what are the advantages to
the homeowner well the advantage is it becomes intelligent it starts learning the patterns of
when you're in and when you're out it can also be activated remotely so cold day you're driving home
from work you fire up your central heating before you get home and return to a toasty warm house
even left me a delicious pork pie we like this homeowner i think it's time to look at lighting
next so we're straight into your world gordon we're in the world of lighting but how can we
improve this lovely space with lights yeah well gary yeah that's my past world guys we can do
we can do smart but we can't do time travel and we're in this home yeah new homes down
lights incredibly popular but if we go back to the rules our great friend ray maloney taught
us there's not much light on the walls not much light on the ceiling and that creates this kind of
yeah it makes the space feel quite compact so can we change that well hopefully we can by
introducing maybe a smart light fitting or a smart lamp in order to change the atmosphere that can be
created within this space yeah so we're going to see how we can quickly do an intervention
just by changing a few lamps possibly adding a bit of lead tape and then also link that to some
of the other smart devices in the house to have some fun and perhaps we also improve security
we promise you at the start of the video we'll go back to the consumer unit we're going to
open it up and have a look at it and we'd like your feedback on some of the features in there
okay let's have a brief look at this consumer unit then gordon before we do what's missing off the
front uh well you don't necessarily need them on the front garage there's no there seems to be no
labels does it so we don't know when it was installed apart from the clue on the smoke alarm
we don't know when it's due for the next test and we don't know who installed it in the first place
okay so lacking stickers but did we talk about solar pv earlier on shouldn't there be a sticker
there for dual sources of energy yeah yeah you're right there gary that's uh that's interesting i
don't know what what the implications were back in the previous edition of the wiring regulations
but there's the breaker there okay let's have a little look there and again one for comments below
should there be a local means of isolation uh here to turn off the supply to the top of that breaker
um we know in the roof space gordon that we've got our inverter yeah and there's yeah two isolated
expect there there is yeah but it's interesting it's very difficult to find out the performance
of that solar system we did track down the inverter it has got a display that tells us
what it's generating in that but that is tucked away in the roof space also interesting to know
gary so look we've got what are we gonna say yeah there's a look in the symbol there type ac
rcd with obviously solar pv on there so let's think about that dc leakage current perhaps
as a potential problem okay we saw earlier on the wood screws holding the front on yeah and
everybody's probably now noting that everything is energized so we're going to take utmost care
now we're just going to slide this plastic cover off just having a sneak peek yes top tip there if
you lose the cover screws for an mk sentry then it looks like a yeah number eight wood screw
okay an inch and a half seems to do the job so i suspect yeah someone's lost the screws
well we know the ip rating in there will be ip2x so you can't touch any live parts and when you
certainly want to start poking around so there we go folks so that's what we've got there now
considering what we've seen as we've gone around the installation gordon that ain't too bad is it
yeah and this is the yeah i mean yeah reasonably well laid out yeah it's tidy-ish and yeah there's
the wire we're gonna have to be looking at soon we'll look at our smart doorbell okay that's
not bell wire that seems to have borrowed a set of wire off the old alarm system to wire in this bell
transfer and of course we've got two different bands of voltages that are present within the same
enclosure so we've got to make sure the insulation of the bell wire is up to the same rated value of
the mains voltage yeah we should do so yeah okay so um we did look at the bonding as well didn't we
so there is bonding here we are talking about 2015 what was the incoming uh source material
for gas and water appeared to be plastic gary okay yeah so we it shows how we've moved on
slightly haven't we as we've gone through so as always we're interested in your comments is
there anything else that you've spotted we're only showing you a quick fly by glance at the consumer
unit itself is there anything else you want us to highlight please leave those comments below
well gary we've seen what challenges we've got ahead of us to make this house smart
more intelligent but most importantly get a grip of the energy in the house and also
add some great convenience features for the homeowner as always we're interested
in your comments what smart features would you like to see installed within this house
please leave those comments below and we'll try and get back to as many as we can
reckon they could fit a camera there gordon yeah you're right