All Activity

Sorry my reply wasn't aimed at you it was to the people who were telling me coal isn't secure.

They will fix the energy security issue by stopping the small boats. They will fix the potholes in the roads by stopping the small boats. They will fix the cost of living crisis by stopping the small boats They will fix the NHS by stopping the small boats They will lower taxes by stopping the small boats They will ensure England win the world Cup by stopping the small boats. They will get rid of the itchy burning sensation between you toes by stopping the small boats. They will fix your leaky roof by stopping the small boats.

Nordan was on our shortlist - very helpful/professional and product looks to be decent. But didn't use in end for 2 reasons - 1. we decided increased risk of splitting supply and install contracts wasn't worth the saving. if you are installing yourself different scenario of course. 2. wouldn't offer increased depth/height of bottom rail/sill we needed due to flat timber frame reveals and being set back. Without raising at base extended sill ends up without adequate fall, if at all. Installer offer to do in ply/similar if we ordered windows undersize but didn't tick the box for me. We used Viking products from Nordica supplied and installed to passivhaus standards including extended sills with upstands to edges and increased sill in factory. Brilliant job / happy with products/people. Air test ended up at 0.45. I don't know other names but always worth checking actual manufacturer/product being proposed as white labelling/rebranding not unusual.

China still has a big infrastructure for coal as it was a huge operator and coal is still used. There is a huge amount of inertia in the planning and commissioning system.

This is a good example of why we need a bit of nuance in the debate. You can quite truthfully say that China are building a large number of new coal power stations every year. And if it suits your agenda, that's the end of the sentence. The bigger picture is that these plants are in part replacing older, less efficient ones, and are acting as backup to an increasingly renewables dependent grid. So that China's emissions are actually falling. Good luck finding that level of analysis in the Daily Mail or GB News.

There is no need to be patronising - have I spoken to you that way? I and a few others may just possibly have thought ahout this issue once or twice. Soon all the fossil fuels have to go, or we wipe outselves out. There's a famous quote similar to "Humans would be the first species to choose to make itself extinct because it wasn't cost effective to bother doing the right thing." The sooner we stop dragging heels and at most use fossils ONLY as an emergency backstop the better. Carping and delaying makes everything worse for everyone.

China is building new coal, but not much and as some is replacing old coal the total growth in thermal capacity is very modest. About 60Gw (out of nearly 3,500 Gw total) against 90Gw of wind and +300Gw of solar. As you can see even though energy production is rising the share by fossil fuels is falling. For all the people who say "why shoukd the UK do anything, China is the important one" - China is doing something. They installed more wind capacity in one year that the entire UK grid (some 45Gw is, depending) and more than 4x in solar. LNG imports were falling (luckily for them) and oil was falling though it did rise slightly last year, mostly due to refilling stockpiles (wouldn't that have been a good idea). I believe actual use of liquid fuels fell.

So coal has a place to help secure energy. Are we all paying attention now

New coal *is* being built, nominally for reasons of energy security, but running at lower and lower capacity factor. Eg see here: https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-chinas-co2-emissions-have-now-been-flat-or-falling-for-21-months/

Farage "Given that our critical reserve of natural gas is down to two days and how vulnerable we are, and with talk potentially of energy rationing coming later this year, isn't it time we change course, get rid of excessive taxation on the exploration companies, open up the licences, and become self-sufficient in natural gas." Of course, given his propensity for lying he will outright deny that he ever meant that granting gas licences ever meant that we could become self sufficient in gas. And Badenoch " Drilling in the North Sea and expanding other sources of generation … is the only way we can protect families from rising bills.” And countless others going on TV and social media giving tge impression that there are vast reserves in thrnorrh sea and the only thing stopping the UK from becoming Saudi-on-sea is woke lefties.

Say 200mm stone, 200mm insulation, 100mm slab. 500mm. Less full being 150mm above ground gets you to 350 reduced dig off ground height. Can reduce insulation with pir and prob go down to 150mm with stone

I get the machine to scrape out before he digs the last wall. You just go to whatever depth you need to bottom of stone for slab or clearance for suspended floor. Are you sure its only 200mm below ffl at present? Did you not even scrape the topsoil off prior to trenches? Presumably your ffl is around 150mm above the existing ground before you started?

The competition is who has the most energy not who has the cleanest. Look up how much coal China built in 2024 and 25. They ain't picky about where it comes from solar, nuclear, coal whatever works

With all due respect, I don’t think you should be giving any advice. Just because you’re not comfortable to be operating an excavator and dumper around some block work. If you don’t trust yourself, get an experienced operator, or get the bulk of the material well away from the blocks out with machinery, then pick away at the rest by hand. It sounds to me like you should be spending more time doing things, rather than getting every opinion under the sun about how something should be done. Why was the material not excavated before the blocks started going in? No idea the footprint of what you’re doing, but I can’t imagine it would be more than a day of work. Did you ask the guy doing the blocks if you could delay him by a day?

They are installing a lot of coal power stations, yet their emissions are falling. The power stations don't do much harm if you're not actually running them.

Not sure but am pretty sure that they are just replacing older less efficient ones with fewer more efficient and cleaner ones + a unfathomable quantity of solar, wind, nuclear, etc (to our eyes).

How many coal power stations do the Chinese commission each year?

It's not just social media. We have people in positions of authority coming out with obviously and easily proven lies. It's no wonder the general public have a poor grasp of facts around these contentious issues. There is no price to pay for lying. There's is no longer even any shame if you are called out on it. And it's only going to get worse as AI fakes proliferate.

I can't find any other sources for this, no official govt press release anyway. If anybody hears more details on this, please post them here.

All the talk is about banning social media for under 16, just ban it all together. So much miss information told as a truth, and then the algorithm just points you at similar rubbish. People that don't have science background just lap it up. Sat next to guy on the train he was telling me that people are daft having solar especially in Scotland, I told him how much I had exported so far in March, he was was quite shocked. Also told him what I paid for it as a self install, he expected tens of thousands, not the couple I actually paid.

Wasn't really saying ditch, the inverter would be still compliant, you are just allowed to plug it into the ring main, and not bother with registration.

This is only a theory but certain segments of the population have become so entrenched against renewables because of their opposition to "green stuff", which seems to be very culture war based, that they are unable to accept that renewables can make sense for other reasons.

We did similar, two of us did it by spade with a barrow. Gets you fit is one way to look at it, kills you is the other. We had a 192m² to do. This is us near the end Have fun

Have you got a section detail showing the foundation, slab, insulation, DPM, DPC, screed and FFL?

+1 for borehole-driller.co.uk, we used them sixteen years ago for for our deepbore soakaway/borehole. The chaps came from Deal and charged £3750 for 46.8m, sounds good at that price.