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I knew there’d be a downside to insulation lol

Interesting, but I'd be a little nervous of using them externally.

Boils my brain to try and get a feel for it, but I think there may be a 5D graph possible showing payback period vs panel capacity, orientation, inverter capacity and battery capacity. For us and I assume many, maxing the panels on one face of the roof was a no brainer as it saved slate (I’m not a fan of surface mount panels). From that our installer used a sort of rule of thumb/wet finger analysis to give us an inverter/battery pair he’d used loads of times on our sort of size if installation and which was well priced. So the 5D graph and all the AI advanced modelling wasn’t needed. So no deep thinking needed. Simples.

And I thought I needed to get out more lol

Oh. Shouldn’t I do that then?

An alternative to Glulam especially if you are going to paint it is PSL .. think of OSB in beam form. Dense, doesn’t rot, bend or split etc.

Sorry, I should have shared more context and the other thread about the loggia which you have kindly contributed to. My last query there was whether I needed ceiling level ties to constrain the main beams laterally or whether the bracketry would achieve that on its own.

I have a deburring tool so can do that bit my self, but they are a nice bunch down at this merchant and I'll put what trade I can their way. Unfortunately, they don't stock Hep2O just PolyPipe and Speedfit.

Hire, or purchase and resell, some steel road plates - the ones with the corner holes to allow you to move them about - like they use to cover excavations in the road. Works well until some bright spark puts a crane leg down on one and bends it!

Hi we have 5x soakaways for my build, one of these will unavoidably be under part of the front drive..we are going with 62tonne crates to handle the load. my query is during the construction phase we will inevitable my have some large delivery trucks etc. how would you recommend I protect the solar during the construction phase ? I’ve looked in to track plates etc but want a cost effective but durable solution.

I find it strangely satisfying cutting copper pipe with the slice. Also polishing it up with wire wool, brings a smile to my face.

Is this a trick? Some say a loggia is part of the main structure or are you just being too smart. If it is part of the main structure then you also have to often transfer sideways sway resistance back in the main structure. Or have another way of resisting lateral sway. Post a dimensioned drawing and let us see what you are wanting to achieve. It looks to me like you are designing on the hoof, but don't actually understand what you are doing. Get a grip of this first and then think about your timber / Gluelam selection and the appropriate connections. Your connections are vitally important. But I suspect you have to date not given this some serious thought. Just ask yourself what is going to stop this swaying sideways.

That’s where the ‘poke in the left eye’ would promptly follow….

Ah, can you post an exact copy of the communication you received from BC? Then tell us a bit about the conversation you had with BC. I come across this often but you are not providing the worts and all back ground.

Not sure only importing in winter is practical, rainy days generation is pants any time if the year. We import all year, but export more than we import most of the summer. Yes we have lots more panel capacity compared to inverter capacity. The inverters rarely run at max capacity anyway. But we have tried to optimise for winter rather summer as summer you over produce anyway. But with big arrays you really need to export and import most the year - we do in NE Scotland, maybe different 500/600 miles further south.

Did they also deburr it for you?

Most ‘nice’ plumbers at the merchants will do this, which is nice of them. 🙂

Yes. Ish. I’d not call it overcapacity, even though we can’t export quite all we generate, even after we've refilled the battery. The numbers made it an easy win.

The kindly local independent plumbers merchant sells pipe by the metre and was happy to cut it up for me which was great. Alternatively: https://pipedreamfittings.com/product/copper-tube-22mm/

Yes, have a 7.5kw generation capacity - could do with more in winter. Have space to get some more panels on the garage so might do that. However with hindsight the thing that actually has quickest payback is battery and night charge in winter at cheap rate.

By which I mean large overcapacity of panels. Object being to provide almost all power in the summer & shoulder seasons - only using imported power in the winter?

A letter from whoever saw it being built, ie SE or Arch, saying that it isn't usual to require this and it was 5 years ago but from visual inspection at the time this was industry standard material. Bco can file that.

You’ll have saved paying a plumber. More energy expended in this thread than the time / cost of the project.

Make one up. Failing that, who was the project manager and who were their insurer.