Category Archives: Systems

Rainwater Pipework Labelling

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One risk with having two separate water pipework systems in a building, where one set of pipes carries Drinking Water supplied from the mains and the other set carries Rain Water, is that it’s important to ensure the right pipe is connected to the right appliances – especially when new connections are being added some time after the original pipework was installed. Accidentally connecting to the wrong pipe won’t be obvious since both pipes carry cold water, but Rain Water is not safe to drink (and must not be allowed into the water supply network).

In the Outbuildings (as opposed to the House) it helps that the pipework is exposed so it’s not too difficult to trace the pipes, but the regulations rightly specify that the rainwater pipework needs to be clearly labelled at suitable intervals.

It seemed sensible to label both sets of pipes, for extra clarity, and to follow the BS1710:2014 guidance for the label colour scheme. This uses Green as the background colour (to indicate a Water pipe) then various other coloured band(s) to indicate the type of water and the source. RM Labels offer a nice range of pipe labels and valve tags and I settled on:

  • For the Drinking Water pipes, their Drinking Water Pipe Marker PMW32a which has a Blue band, indicating “Potable water derived from the public water supply”
  • For the Rain Water pipes, their Rain Water Pipe Marker PMW59a which has a Grey band (to indicate a source other than the public water supply) and a Black stripe (to indicate the water is non-potable).

While it is of course necessary to follow the label colour standards and professional plumbers should be familiar with the colour codes, I’m not sure who else would know what the Grey, Black and Blue bands mean – but the text makes the pipe contents clear too.

“Rain Water” and “Drinking Water” pipe labels attached to insulated 22mm copper water pipes

One minor problem is that these labels don’t stick very well to polythene pipe insulation – especially in cold and damp conditions – so I opted to over-wrap the labels with the sort of clear sticky film intended for wrapping paperback textbooks (visible as a shiny band in the photo). That film is cut long enough to wrap over onto itself, which should help it stay in place.

(An alternative would have been to use slightly different labels that are supplied on a roll and which wrap all around the pipe by themselves, e.g. Drinking Water Pipe Banding for Potable Water from Public Water Supply – Self-adhesive – PB001PWPWS and its equivalent for Rain Water.)

Temperature and Humidity Monitoring in the Outbuildings – Thread Network Range Issues?

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The GL-S20 Thread Border Router and the two original Timmerflotte temperature and humidity sensors have been working fine. Once they came back into stock at the local IKEA I bought two further Timmerflotte sensors. One of those didn’t want to Commission (needs further investigation) but the other one did Commission successfully, at the first attempt, and took the expected firmware update.

While that third sensor has mostly been OK, it’s periodically dropping off the Thread network. The first time that happened I intervened with a power-cycle, which brought it straight back online, but on a couple of other occasions it came back all by itself.

Periodic connectivity drop-outs for the Timmerflotte sensor in the Ground Floor Store room

The main difference from the other two sensors is the distance from the Thread Border Router – roughly 16m, with one 100mm concrete-block wall in the way. Might that be the issue?

Thread networks are expected to operate in a ‘mesh’ topology, with mains-powered Thread devices acting as relays for the radio signals, between the central Thread Border Router and the (battery powered) End devices, so maybe one of those would help?

As a first step I’m going to try moving the problematic sensor a bit closer to the TBR. If that doesn’t work I’ll move the TBR much closer to the sensor (there are limited options because of the availability of wired Ethernet network ports).

Update: Moving the sensor about 1.5m closer to the TBR (but still on the other side of a wall) prompted it to come back online, so now it’s recording readings again. I’ll see if that proves to be a long-term fix.

The implication is that the drop-outs were indeed caused by a Thread network range issue – which implies the plan to locate the fourth Timmerflotte sensor even further from the TBR is likely to be problematic without some sort of network extender device. While not yet available in the UK, the IKEA GRILLPLATS ‘smart socket’ looks like it might be suitable (and not too expensive).