As promised another update, following many tweaks and a firmware upgrade from Solis.
So the existing problems were:
Whenever the battery isn't at 100% SOC, it pulls an amount of power from the grid, somewhere between 60W and 100W
Even when the battery is actively charging, it still pulls the same 60-100W from the grid, regardless if there is enough PV power to charge the battery and cover loads at the same time. Once the battery is 100% SOC and im generating PV
I’ve been meaning to provide an update on the progress of this build for a while, and I find myself with a spare couple of work hours 🙂
At the end of December 2021, we left you with 95% of the lower floor walls complete, and looking forward to getting the first set of steels installed. Of course, last winter’s weather, including some furious storms, had a thing or two to say about that, which included me going down at short notice and staying in the local Travelodge (other chains ar
Forgot i'd done this for some reason 😂
Been a long time coming, but finally decided to get on with it, heres a few before and after and during pics, I did use wall anchors too but for some reason didn't bother taking a photo at that point.
Pleased with how it came out, not only looks better than before with the conduit for the wire which is now buried, but should also save some £££.
The plinth in
What a journey that was, lying builder and a few no show days caused the finish date to slip, and following a 2month delayed start, but I got there in the end!! Good things come to those who wait eh.
So the outside shell of the building is now completed, and yesterday I started work on the inside.
The lean-to roof was extremely close, but just squeezed it in with a slight pitch modification. This leaves me with essentially 3 sections of wall to clad: Near sid
Results for us as they come forward...(and not what I expected)
Our Cool Energy inverTech Air Source Heat Pump CE-iVT9 4.3kW-9.5kW has been on standby only, for the last few weeks, and I have measured the power consumption. It appears to use about 0.1 kWh an hour. That's about 2.25kWh a day in 24 hours.
We use a Solic 200 to direct our excess electricity produced by the PV to the hot water immersion.
Whilst the Solic way of heat the hot water uses more energ
A short blog to show my Mini spilt Air2Air install, in the Windy Roost Static.
I looked at installing a wood burning stove, but we have zero trees on site, so when I looked at the costs of twin wall flue, terminals, flashing, creating a heat shield and making the caravan tidy plus the hassle of getting wood / coal, the costs were adding up.
A quick question on here - Build hub, some options were suggested and I decided to go with the a cheap Air 2 Air heat pump from Appliances direct.
It’s been over a year since we got our completion certification and we’re still mopping up tasks in the garden and generally cleaning up. It occurred to us that some aspects of the discovery process of the build may be off use to others on BuildHub.
It’s too hot in here: Thermal modelling limitations.
Our thermal modelling done as part of the design stage SAP suggested we had minimal thermal gain problems. However we suspected that thermal gain from our east facing windows would
After following others journeys into the self build world for years, it looks like I'm finally about to embark on my own after several soft starts. The first major work is to realign the driveway and I've opted for paved over other styles and to do most of it myself. I got a driver & digger to take up the concrete driveway and grass and pile it up and hired a grab truck to take it all away. Less than two days later I was left with a barren front garden! Since then I've been figuring out a fe
We use 4 phases from rainwater to flushing the loo with it and they are:
Collecting, separating and storing in bulk tank.
Fine filtering and storing in barrel.
filling the gravity tank in the loft
Filling the cistern
This is not the only system that is possible but one that works with our property limitations.
This design and its controls take into account freezing conditions.
We use two 12V pumps run from batteries and PV.
To finish my 22 days on site. I started timber framing, decided to start on the amenity block, as this will initially be for our washing machine and dryer, plus some storage. My aim was to get water tight -ish. before I had to get home for the weekend.
The poly tunnel (constructed this visit) - is my cutting shed, I set up my chop saw and worked to my cut list.
This was proof of concept on my build plans, and it needed tweaking, the roof to wall junction has been modified and will
My dual roles for the first 10 days of the June / July trip was to get ready for concreting.
This breaks down into two slab / raft foundations for the Cabins, 1 slab for the amenity block, and some backfilling of the treatment plant, and while I'm at it, concrete for the Polycarbonate Polly tunnel. another blog to follow.
In my opinion, the structural calculations for the slab rafts were well over engineered. the slabs will be ground bearing (rock) foundation and thinner slab,
Wednesday 26th June, I spent most of this day travelling, in my van and my two helpers for the next few weeks.
The trip is 433 miles door to door, the goal before the boss arrives for 9 days was to get the caravan (home) connected to the treatment plant. plus get ready for concrete. other blogs to follow.
To connect the Static I needed to install the treatment plant, install some of the drainage for the pods, confirm with BC he is happy and basically crack on with
This info relates to a DIY rainwater harvesting system, not a commercial system, and therefore the water must not be drunk!
You should be careful using rainwater not to mix it with mains (Potable) Water as it is not suitable to drink and you could poison your house supply! To be clear birds poo on your roof and then it rains. However there are ways to elevate the problem in a DIY system so there is no smell or colour problems but it still cannot be drunk!
You should n
I am not sure how well it works yet, but it works in trivial cases i.e. a 40 W lightbulb and my fridge (once I had stopped stray morning light). I am going to ask my neighbours if I can pop the Photo Diode on their meter as I don't want to stop the one that is already logging mine.
What would be good is if others, who have a lot more knowledge and skills than me (I am really just a chancer than fiddles about till it seems to work) could improve and add to it.
Things that would be nice
Two christmases have passed since I wrote the last entry here and we’re well into another year. The last few weeks have seen us discussing the possibility of another build and I decided to reread this blog in the hope of putting myself off the idea! The land next to us which has planning for 5 houses is beginning to move and the first house will be going up soon, I spent half an hour a couple of weeks ago chatting to the chap who’s going to be building and could feel the excitement brewing in me
So after 2 years since the planning permission was granted, and a 2month delay from the builders I'm finally underway on what will be the last major building work on this bungalow.
Having real trouble finding a joiner who's available to do the roof, so I may end up having to do that myself. The one bit i'm unsure on having never done a lean-to roof before, the wood plate which goes
While I was uncertain about ever getting to build my new house I decided to hire some plant and build a patio out in the back garden of my existing house. It will allow me to sit out in the morning, absorb the sunshine and ponder things! I found some nice 40x40 concrete flagstones and edged them in and finally grouted them yesterday. They need a cleanup and a wash and I've to fix the drainage in one spot but otherwise it's done! The experience will also come in handy as I'll explain shortly.
Well 6 months on and once again the only progress is paid work.
After all the disappointment over the issues we have been pretending that it's not happening.
We came up with a list of options.
Give up totally and clear the site
Return the barn to stables
Sell as it is
Sell barn and our house so we don't have to watch someone else do what we wanted to do.
Hand over to a building company even though we can't really afford to.
Try and progress
The next stage of the setup of the site took place over the last 3 weeks. with some good progress.
The trip up North, 433mile from our current rental in the NW of England. I set off on Wednesday morning in the 7.5T truck, and the 2 dogs for company. I took some materials with me, and had a gut feeling I was overloaded. I had worked out the approx. weight of what I was taking, but was unsure of the TARE weight of the truck. so I didn't take all I was planning. Luckily the nice guys from V
Having had no response about the Ridgeblade product, I am now looking towards the MDi Airwall as a form of power storage.
This uses excess energy to compress air and use the compressed air to produce electricity.
The basic unit indicates a 7kwh storage capacity.
I had a few spare minutes on this lovely sunny Sunday evening and decided to spend it writing up a blog post for our basement UFH install and screed.
We have a 250mm reinforced concrete slab sitting on top of 200mm EPS300 in the basement. The slab wasn’t very flat and so we decided to use a cement based liquid screed to give us a nice level base for our finished flooring. So we put down 25mm of PIR to level things out and also to allow the UFH pipes to be stapled to. I did some quick
There were two obstacles blocking me from proceeding with my build. After finding a professional who could sign off the compliance paperwork (I couldn't afford the Architect) I had a boundary issue which I agreed with a neighbour to resolve and then I had to add a window to the plans and submit them for approval before I could lodge a commencement notice and get going.
Issue 1:
When the house was built years ago a hedge was planted at 90 degrees to the house fronts but the land
Having now had a 5.12kW system running for about 6 months, usage seems to be forming a pattern. It appears we are buying an average of about 11kW a day so 28p times 11 times 365 days means a bill of about £1,200 including vat and daily charge etc (This includes charging the EV but see below). We are trying to improve this without becoming anal about it.
When you consider that our PV system realistically reaches, about 5kW max (due to orientation and roof angle) and about 1kW on a goo
