How to handle loft space?

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  • Paul_B
    Automated Home Legend
    • Jul 2006
    • 608

    How to handle loft space?

    Morning all,

    Spent the last week doing quite a bit of work in the loft firstly boarding then running cables to various parts to create size areas. As I'm retrofitting my home with Idratek I find a lot of cabling goes up to the loft, so it made sense to improve lighting and ability to move around. I've also added a patch panel as a lot ot eh CAT5 cabling goes via the loft and it saves me cable and effort.

    At the moment I am thinking that I should represent in Cortex as a room off the first floor because the loft has now ladders for stairs and the loft has a magnetic connection on the hatch which I can represent as a door. How are others doing this?

    Paul
  • chris_j_hunter
    Automated Home Legend
    • Dec 2007
    • 1713

    #2
    Hi Paul -

    our loft, recently done, is boarded just around the hatch, and the hatch-cover is lifted-off & is put to one side, rather than being hinged ...

    the building & so the loft is a long rectangle, so we've run a rope-light along each side, left & right ...

    there's also LED tape around the hatch opening ...

    in-front of us, when we put our head through the hatch, is a double power point, a DRB, a PLH, and a QAI ...

    the DRB relays switch the lights, and its buttons are Connected to toggle them ...

    the QAI senses solar-panel flow & return temperatures, via clip-on thermistors ...

    the PLH temperature & humidity & light-level sensors allow us to monitor the state of the loft ...

    Presence detection from the PLH motion-sensor etc is used to switch the rope-lights automatically ...

    the PLH light-sensor also tells us when light's are on, including possibly working lights plugged into the power points, which might have been forgotten ...

    we've a reed switch waiting to be added to detect when the hatch-cover is out of place ...

    the hatch-way is over the upper stairs, so it's a Room opening off the landing at the top of them, which is a Room with doors (yet to be installed, but with reed-switches already in-place) to top-floor front & back Rooms ...

    the PLH is positioned to not have a view through the hatch ...

    there's also smoke detection in the loft, with a relay linking to a digital-input ...

    Chris
    Our self-build - going further with HA...

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    • Paul_B
      Automated Home Legend
      • Jul 2006
      • 608

      #3
      Thanks Chris,

      That is pretty much how I have setup mine, the loft is a room from the landing in Cortex the loft hatch is a door. Reed switch is waiting to be installed but all working and linked to a DRH which also controls the main lighting feed. The other relay is linked to a plug socket which powers the in-loft mast head amplifier for our aerial. The latter means that if no-one is watching TV the amplifier is turned off. The lighting is LED based and I'm very happy with the results so far using these from Ultraleds - http://www.ultraleds.co.uk/ip67-5050...en-p-2458.html

      In the future I'll be adding more power and control for the new patch cabinet. Can't use the existing feed as it is a single radial off the spur and would have the potential to draw too much power.

      Paul

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