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Sure. I made a general statement, doesn't mean there aren't exceptions. Most people don't have 7p rates at night, bigger batteries in cars is increasingly common now the price of the batteries has plummeted, charging during the day on some tarriffs can be more than 30p/kwh. I admit that £30 is probably high but £20 is very much realistic for a charge from 20% for someone with a 80kwh vehicle.

My van has a 40kwh battery. If I was your friend and stayed over it would cost 40x7p = £2.80 to go from completely empty to completely full on overnight rates. I'm very unlikely to arrive with a completely empty battery, so I'd probably only need a quid or so worth of juice. If you've got spare solar then it's free.

Wouldn't get to bogged down with that. If room temp is 20 and you have UFH, then your minimum return is not likely to be lower than house temp (assuming you have insulation under the screed etc). If you are operating a flow to return dT of 5 you minimum flow temp will be lower than 25. Most R290 will go down to 20, some may be limited to 25, but they are mostly R32.

For sure. Also min flow temp if it's a figure given.

'To comply with the rules' is an answer but its not THE answer. Why is it a rule? I think it is reasonable to require installation of the cabling to a point on an outside wall. In contrast it is nonsense to mandate that i spend a grand of my hard earned for the potential benefit of someone else.

I thought I'd just report what I consider to be great customer service from Lusso Stone. All of our sanitary goods came from Lusso Stone and have been in use for coming up to 5 years now. The soft close mechanism of the most frequently used toilet seat is becoming less and less soft close so I gave Lusso a call to see if there was a fix, or if they had service parts available. I was informed that the soft close mechanism is covered by the same 25 year warranty as everything else. I was quite amazed, and a few minutes after the call the new soft close bits and bobs are in the post (they also look to be very easy to replace as well, video instructions have been received). They're not the cheapest out there, they're also not the most expensive, but the great customer service (second time now) is making it feel like a good purchase decision.

I agree that local facilities should be the priority. Perhaps @ProDavecan confirm that they already have good access to doctors etc, village hall, regular buses and so on due to these funds. Also that reducing use of electricity has to be encouraged, but it isn't so important if the wind farm is local. Just as it doesn't matters so nuch if you have your own solar. Wind is a national/ regional asset. I suppose so was coal , and that was whipped away commercially and to the prosperous, and locals employed but only until the coal ran out or they died young. If the terrain allows farming, that is a harvest for selling. Likewise if the asset is wind. We would sell power internationally, so why not regionally? Round @ProDave 's way there are estates of thousands of acres, owned of course by a few with a castle or 2 and a house in "town". At least the locals seem to be getting something.

I've never understood this. The gardening programmes often say to add sand or gravel to help drainage, and presumably they are right. But how gravel helps in porosity I don't know. Perhaps it just forms breaks in the bonds between clay particles.

We are on clay. Lot depends on how much garden you have. I would be tempted to use an excavator to break up the top 12 inches, remove any junk, and mix in a huge quantity of organic matter. Perhaps a 50:50 mix. We only did this on the beds but wish I had done something similar for the lawn. We have a land drain across it but its too wet in winter and we get a lot of moss. I was warned off sand because apparently it can turn the clay into cement. Not sure if that's true for all clay.

In terms of changing the appearance, yes it does. In terms of damaging the property, yes it can. In terms of damaging all properties to which it is applied, no it doesn't. Like all insulation measures it needs care and risk analyses. My guideline is that the end result must not look stupid. If it does, it probably is, and there are probably several more stupidities thrown into the mix. 'Cowboys' never give any discipline a good reputation, but there are good guys out there. I just feel sorry for those who get not-a-good-guy.

A future owner of my house might want a pool, should i install one now just in case. FFS! Solar panels are very popular, green and likely to become mandatory soon. Should i also install some

Render of a 3D printed tile flashing. It'll get CT1'd to the tile. A 110mm elbow will sit on top of this:

Not a hard rule to me but should be the default unless either the host has massive solar and the energy is close to free or is sufficiently well off that the cost is inconsequential. I don't really have a problem with a short charge costing almost nothing, that's no different a offering a guest a drink, but if you show up somewhere with a low battery I don't think you should accept a full recharge without paying. With EV chargers being mandated they will be increasingly installed in places where the owner doesn't use them and therfore may not be aware of what a significant charge costs or necessarily be on the right tariff to use them cheaply.

No of course. Definitely support them being there as having a destination charger makes some journeys with an EV much easier. So it should be there for guests or future owners even if the current home owner themselves doesn't currently have an EV.

I get limiting the export for the reasons laid out in the video, but the idea of limiting the inverter seems to rest on the theory that the export limit might fail and the inverter pump out whatever it's maximum at that moment is. But that seems to assume that the export limit system (a current meter and some software) would fail. Irrc my system just shuts down if the current clamp isn't working. Surely the whole point of g100 export limit certification is to make system the design and implementation is as foolproof as possible. Moreover, if the DNO is worried that you 8kw inverter could lead to severe problems if it were to pump the full 32a or whatever instead of the 16a limit into the local grid, that implies the local grid is running very very close to it's margin, less than 16a in fact, which could easily be gobbled up tomorrow by a neighbour notifying a g98 install. What I'm getting at is: has anyone actually heard of a dno limiting the inverter size for a regular hybrid inverter install with g100 limit certification?

Why can't they accept if offered?!

No, but it shouldn't be used as a strawman argument against fitting a charger to a new-build property in line with building regulations

I am not sure it is a good idea as it increases inequality. Rural people often complained about the lack of public services i.e. schools, doctors, libraries, policing etc, the money may be better spent on those. I live in one of the poorest parts of Europe, the wealth inequality is huge down here, even if the income differences are not that great (may have to look that up). There is a world of difference between a retired person on modest pension and a recent graduation doing 20 hours a week on minimum wage, even if the income is similar. Giving energy bill rebates, just because there is a field with some PV in it, 2 miles away, or a windfarm that cannot be seen at night, does not seem a good policy to me. I don't get a rebates on my transport costs because I can hear cars, or free medical prescriptions because, at the moment, I can see B1 bombers. But let's say I did. Should it be based on a fraction of my current usage, a fixed amount off i.e. 2 MWh/year. Maybe just a rebates to spend freely. Then what would happen if I still failed to pay, should I be forced to pay the rebate back? The best way to reduce bills is to reduce usage and then increase local RE generation and storage.

I would try to find the engineering tables for various heat pumps, the minimum modulation figure is more important than the max output figure as your heating requirements are around half your design day for the average heating season day. Plus you will get an idea of expected CoP at you flow temps.

Ok, sorry, my mental maths was off. Still, different people are on different rates. Some people may pay a lot more during the day for electricity, some people have pretty low incomes (pensioners). So as a general rule I don't think EV owners should expect or accept free charging from their hosts.

All of this is amusing pub banter (including the tabloid clickbait costs) but the rules are the rules. An EV charger is in building regs. A bin gulley is not.

The £1.80 per hour was for a 7kW charger, based on standard tariff electric at 25p per kWh.

Ah that's really interesting to see- thank you. Makes me think I should look at something similar for pumps. Given the price of the quotes I have received a self installation (+sparky) might be on the cards...

Depends on the charger. Basic 16A one sure, £1.80 may bit on the high side for that, but plenty of chargers getting installed are the 7kw type. Someone local popping round for a coffee isn't going to need to charge their car. The people who will need to charge are those who have just travelled 150 miles to visit for at least many hours, quite possibly overnight. Big charges like that do add up.

depends if they want a biscuit, or how many squares of paper they use.