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Another thing people tend to do with FIT solar PV is optimise the panel orientation for maximum yield. That is fine if your objective is to maximise payment. But for a non FIT self use scheme, you don't just want a passive peak in the middle of the day that you are unlikely to be able to fully self use. Instead my plan is some panels facing east, to get a much earlier start to useful generations levels and less facing south so the mid day peak will not be as large. Also if I can manage some facing west would be good to extend generation into the evening, but that is harder to arrange here. The total yield would be lower, but my feeling is you would generate more self usable power throughout the day. One option I am looking at is making my east facing bank on a simple flip over mount so they would in effect be on a very basic tracker and those same panels could do the evening burst as well.

PTC ones are self regulating - eBay is your friend. PTC Element

For Westfield, yes. They are all different in their packages. Since you can read my compressed screen dump, Dr Ferdinandus the Unqualified thinks you probably do not need them too often ;-). It is like those low level security screenings: Q Do I need to check you out? A No. Q Good then I don’t. Do you want a cup of tea? I’ll post a list of the approx 10 such organisations I know about. F

See http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/car-news/103256/ovo-launches-vehicle-to-grid-charger-for-nissan-leaf - even without smart meters it's possible to make a profit selling electricity from cars back to the grid.

You can have a play with volt drop here: https://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Technical/Charts/VoltageDrop.html The calculation behind this is volt drop = (mV/A/m) x lb x L 1000 Where: mV/A/m is the mili volt drop per amp per metre. Get that from the regs or OSG. Cable spacing and the reference method means the volt drop for a particular cable can vary. lb is the design current L is the length in metres and 1000...is erm 1000 to get it to volts.

I think you can probably just replace the element with a thermostatic one, like this: https://www.nwtdirect.co.uk/86-thermostatic-electric-heating-elements (I'm not recommending them, they were just the first hit on a web search). Our towel rails are both ordinary wet ones, intended for use with a central heating system, but converted to electric power by plugging the unwanted hole, fitting thermostatic elements and filling them with antifreeze and inhibitor (car antifreeze is ideal, as it has inhibitor already). I'm pretty sure the elements I bought were a fair bit less than the prices on that link above, but I can't quickly find where I got them from (I have a sneaking suspicion it was ebay).

Important to use the right cable for long runs and high loads. If my memory serves me correctly the max allowed voltage drop due to cable losses is around 5% (about 11.5V). So a 30A load on a minimum size cable could dissipate 345W. Bigger cable might get the drop down to 2-3V which is still 60-90W.

Huge blinds windows in bedroom is very nice. I highly recommend ❤️

If it's of any interest I've been monitoring our consumption and production for several years and have modeled the performance for a battery system. The results are not very impressive. The system has just under 13kW of solar panels, facing SSW at 45 degrees. Nominal battery capacity 14.4kWhr, DOD limited to 80%. Average daily consumption is about 21kWhr, so annually about 7700kWhr. 2012 shortfall of 1370 kWhr (3 months with zero import) 2013 shortfall of 1510 kWhr (5 months with zero import) 2014 shortfall of 1180 kWhr (4 months with zero import) 2015 shortfall of 1410 kWhr (4 months with zero import) 2016 shortfall of 1410 kWhr (4 months with zero import) 2017 shortfall of 1320 kWhr (4 months with zero import)

Bingo ProDave, I had been taking advice of our kit builder and had looked at the English building regs not the Scottish ones. The Scottish ones state, 'However a private stair may be constructed with open risers and without contrasting nosings as occupants will be more familiar with the stair through frequent use.' Looks like we are good thanks for the info.

Yeah the winter generation can be pathetic, i monitored it this winter and we averaged about 2kwh a day, so clearly wouldn't be getting full battery use. I think maybe to think about this less as the full charge and discharge cycle, the major benefit for me is the ability to top up existing generation, which rarely is enough. For example on a hot sunny day in summer, we'll generate a reasonably static 2.2-2.6kwh, which barely scrapes running things like oven, washing machine singly. The ability to provide another 3kwh from the battery on top of this 2.2-2.6, gives a lot more scope for flexibility, and of course it costs nothing from the grid.

Specs for the Pylon Tech batteries have just been improved to 90% DoD with a full 10 year warranty, used to be 80%, however their materials have improved I believe.

As an example, here's the daily generation for January this year on my 8.5kW system: There were 14 days that generated less than 4.8kWh, and that's ignoring charge/discharge inefficiencies, SoC limitations, and the fact that at least some of what was generated will have been consumed and therefore not available for storage. I just checked, and December was worse, with 19 days that generated less than 4.8kWh. Remember, this is an 8.5kW system. A 4kW system would have generated less than half what's shown above. In fact, a 4kW system at my location (Hampshire/Surrey borders) would only have managed 5 days above 4.8kWh in January, and only 1 (and only barely!) day in December.

On a similar vein, I have just got my hot water connected ( by immersion) and was pleased to find out that the 9m run from the DHW tank to the tap in 10mm plastic pipe only took 10 seconds to get hot water at the tap, it appears using 10mm pipe was a success (phew) and the flow at 2bar is very adequate .

Yes, my electric bike BMS does the same as the system in my car, as I designed it to run the cells between 30% and 85% SoC, but the issue with lithium cells was never really cycle life, but the relatively rapid rate of degradation with age, the calendar life. Lithium cells used to have a pretty poor calendar life, around 4 to 5 years even if you rarely ever cycled them, but this has gradually being improving, and newer chemistries seem to have a much longer calendar life, as do older chemistries with newer manufacturing methods. I did a stack of measurements a few years ago on some test cells of different types (but all lithium ion exchange cells), holding them at the best life long term storage open circuit voltage and cycling them once every few months to measure the capacity loss, and it was then between 5% and 10% per year, so for most applications calendar life was more critical than cycle life. The worst cell type in terms of calendar life degradation was the first generation LiFePO4 cells, they lost capacity more quickly than the older (and potentially more dangerous) LiCoO2 cells. The newer LiCoO2 cells I bought around a year ago seem to be significantly better in terms of much reduced capacity loss with age, so I'm guessing the manufacturing process has improved. Cycle life is highly non-linear with SoC range for pretty much every cell chemistry, massively so in the case of some lithium cell chemistries, like LiFePO4, where 10% to 95% may only give 1000 cycles, but restricting operation to 30% to 90% SoC may well give well over 20,000 cycles.

My concern with moving the kitchen would be will that make a very long run for the hot water to reach the kitchen taps? Where is the new kitchen location in relation to the combi boiler? I am minded of my plumber friends house where he ended up with the hot water tank as far from the kitchen as it was possible, in a house twice the size of mine.

Caution: EVs and hybrids never "fully" charge nor discharge their batteries. Back in the 1990s, Toyota discovered that if you restrict the SoC to a swing of about 40% to 60%, the battery essentially lasts for ever (for the life of the car, anyway). This is why you see MY2005 Prius taxis at 300,000+ miles. But that was NiMH chemistries. Lithium chemistries can stretch the point. For example, my Outlander PHEV uses around 25-95% SoC. I guess @JSHarris' plug-in Prius does a similar thing. And I guess his e-bike didn't ? This also means you need to be careful when thinking about the battery capacity: If you want it to last 10 years, the usable capacity will be significantly less than the rated capacity (depending on how the specs are written). To use my PHEV example again: Most of the spec sheets say it has a 12 kWh battery, which is true, but it only uses about 70% of that (roughly 8.5 kWh).

Resistance is futile. Although the household is now on a liquids only diet for a few weeks.

Lets work on 4.8 KWh of storage. IF you fill and use that every day / night, you will save about 50p worth of electricity compared to importing. So over a year, you will save about £182.50 Assuming you have managed to buy the kit for £2K the saving will therefore take you just short of 11 years to pay for itself. What do you think the battery capacity will be like in 11 years? I would say ready for new batteries some time very soon. So the true cost of your "free" stored energy is not a whole lot less than the retail cost of importing power. To me, it still does not stack up. I keep on looking at batteries and the cost needs to fall, or true long life batteries like NiFe need to become popular. Concentrate on more self usage in the day and dumping excess to water heating. And keep watching the prices.

My PV array(s) is(are) finally commissioned, they have been on the roof since November last year! Two reasons for the delay: Mains power required in the house (Available Feb), also final second fit electrical, no extensions! Internet required!!! The installers tried setting it up at the end of March but failed! They returned last week when I was there and basically I did the commissioning work!!! (Following the instructions). I have 37 x 280W Monocrystalline panels JAM6(K)-60-280-4BB (Chinese from the supplier) each coupled to an enphase micro-inverter. These are wired via 3-phase cable (house is 3-phase) into their own breaker board, then onto the main board via an import meter. Teh array is split up 10 panels SE and 27 SW, each array has it's own breaker and there is a noise suppressor in the box also. An enphase envoy is wired in next to the breaker box and communicates with micro-inverters via powerline and the world by my Wi-Fi (on an isolated subnet). The problem was that the envoy (brains) could not communicate with the micro-inverters so the system was not coming online. The installers commissioning the system were stumped so after about an hour I went up into the attic to help, First of all connecting the system to my Wi-Fi (not the temporary BT Hub from build), then I downloaded the installer app (iPhone), they logged me on, and following the instruction on my laptop set up the array details (all micro-inverters were serial numbered) and set it to work. Remarkably all micro-inverters were detected but only 2/3 communicating (powerline problems), by this time it was past support hours so they planned to come back the next day. In the meantime my electrician came in to do some odd jobs, I explained the issue to him and he suggested that they take a power feed directly off their breaker board (behind their noise suppressor) for the envoy rather than use the socket that is on the attic ring. When the installers returned the next day, I passed on the advice which they confirmed with the enphase support people and fitted the dedicated socket, unsurprisingly all bar one reported in and that one has since done so. My array is now up and running: It can be viewed here: https://enlighten.enphaseenergy.com/pv/public_systems/yYpm1387793/overview?preview=1 I have managed over 8kW in the current garbage weather and over 40kWh on one day! As an aside I had to have an interim EPC produced before the array was commissioned to enable full FIT rate claim, the EPC will be subsequently re-assessed (with Solar) to give a final realistic figure. It is a quirk of the system (designed for retrofit not new-build) that if you commission a system without a lodged EPC, you get a FIT rate of about 10% of the current puny rate, but you cannot include Solar in your EPC until it is commissioned, so you end up doing it twice!!

Both the Sadolins Classic and Extra are more like a varnish than a wood stain/preserver. The Extra more so than the Classic. The Extra is quite thick and needs to be brushed out well to get a thin coat which looks better than slapping it on thick. I think I got the Extra Clear from BnQ last time but yes I agree it's hard to find for some reason. I have also used this place... https://www.wood-finishes-direct.com/product/sadolin-extra-durable-clearcoat I think the Natural is brown not clear. Think it would hide the wood grain. We have a lot of exterior oak with several different finishes on it: 1) Sadolins, 2) Danish Oil 3) Osmo UV-Protection oil. 4) Ronseal General Purpose Wood stain We have Sadolins on our oak front door and that's been very good. Been in the house 11 years and it's only been re-coated once so far. However a door is vertical, I don't know how it stands up on horizontal surface like a chair. The Danish oil needs retreating once a year or the horizontal bits go grey/black. Right pain as I need a scaff tower to do mine.. I've started replacing the Danish with the Osmo which they claim lasts twice as long. So far the bits I did a year ago look very good so they might be correct. The Osmo is a bit light in colour so I've been sanding off the damaged Danish and then recoating with 1 Danish and then two coats of Osmo. The Osmo is about twice the price of Danish. Note that not all Danish Oil is rated for outdoor use. The Ronseal General Purpose Wood stain was used on sawn oak cladding on an out building. I spray it on using Hozelok garden water sprayers. Its solvent based so the sprayers don't last long but they are only a bit more expensive than a decent brush but way faster. This also needs recoating every other year or perhaps more frequently. PS: This is also getting hard to find as everything goes VOC free.

Same as me. Warm roof, pavatex, non tenting breathable membrane, vertical counter battens, horizontal battens, box profile roof sheets. Battens then counter battens = 50mm gap anyway.

Yes we had the same with the LPG chaps when we did the rebuild at Millstone manor. We laid the pipe from the proposed tank position to the house entry point. They did the rest but as there is no meter I guess things are different. Anyway have started gathering names of local worthy plumbers from neighbours.

Its the local tipple Their advertising campaign is ; once a week, a large bus took drinkers from one of their local pubs to the brewery show us the whole process put on a massive Lancashire hot pot let us drink as much Bomber as we like bus us home lock-in stagger home at 2 or 3 in the morning King brilliant. I used to go every year. I always had to have the following day off. Too old to survive that punishment now.

Gordon Bennett! Are you running a power station?

I got a price list (attached) from the uk Bora rep back in March, These are retail ex vat. No idea how much if at all they may have changed in the last months. I bough a BFIU which is the flexzone induction with recirculation. Bear in mind to the price of the hob itself you have add the extraction package. 170111_Pricelist_PCB_Z2_EN_GB-Pfund_01-2017.pdf