SteamyTea

I think that is more to do with underdevelopment rather that western wastefulness.

Have you thermally modelled your new build. If not, now is the time to do it. You need to do a room by room analysis, not just an overall loss calculation. Also remember that, via conduction, thermal energy can travel downwards/sideways though the floor, so you need bare that in mind.

Was listening to this last night. The Climate Question A hectare of woodland can adsorb 100 tonnes of CO2 a year, a hectare of newly planted woodland absorbs 3 tonnes/year. And that is before you add on the CO2 released by removing, processing and burning that timber.

You might be. How are you going to deal with waste? I pay £2.0714/m2 for water, plus £0.197/day for water £3.3206/m3 x .95, plus £0.167/day for waste.

I think the tutors need some English lessons.

Has anyone applied Hess's Law to home combustion? Hess's Law is a modification of the 1st Law of Thermodynamics.

If it is an external wall, then yes, with insulation. Generally best to insulate pipework anyway. It is also possible that the 'filler' you use could react with the copper.

Slightly less than lightbulbs we used to fit.

Why frenemies, or love-hate relationships, are so bad for your health Friends who blow hot and cold put more strain on your physical and mental health than enemies. Here's how to spot them and handle them By David Robson 15 October 2024 Mariana Castel/Millennium Images, UK When I contemplate the members of my social network, I am mostly filled with unadulterated feelings of love and warmth: I simply can’t wait to see them again, in the knowledge that we will bask in mutual affection and support. A handful, however, arouse quite different emotions – a mixture of eagerness and dread. They promise encounters that are the conversational equivalent of Russian roulette. In the right mood, these individuals can deliver a fun-filled evening, but if I catch them at the wrong moment, they can drain me of all my goodwill. There is simply no knowing what is to come. If this sounds familiar, then you too have frenemies. Psychologists call them “ambivalent relationships” and they don’t just have the potential to ruin a good party, they also have surprising consequences for your well-being. According to a wealth of research, these love-hate relationships are often more stressful than interactions with people who are consistently nasty. They can damage your mental and physical health. They might also be prematurely ageing you. Knowing this, the simple solution would seem to be to cut ties with these people. But our relationships with frenemies aren’t simple, and ditching them isn’t always possible or even desirable. However, a deeper insight into your ambivalent relationships will help you deal with them more effectively. It could make you a better friend, too. Because, when you know the signs to look out for, you might discover that the frenemy in some of your relationships is you. Since the 1970s, huge studies examining thousands of people over extended periods have shown that those with more vibrant social networks tend to live longer and are less susceptible to a host of different illnesses – from the common cold to Alzheimer’s disease and heart attack. Many of these studies focus on the sheer size of people’s social circles: those with larger networks appear to live longer than those with smaller ones. The nasty behaviour of frenemies can be enough to make your hair curl Martin Parr/Magnum Photos Over time, however, it has become clear that the quality of our relationships can matter as much as the quantity. After all, the benefits of social connection come from feeling well understood and supported: if we know that others will have our back when we are threatened and vulnerable, life is less stressful. But not all our acquaintances leave us feeling like this. Not only do some fail to protect us from life’s slings and arrows – they will sometimes slide the knife in themselves. How to spot a frenemy To capture these interpersonal dynamics, Julianne Holt-Lunstad and her colleagues at Brigham Young University in Utah have designed a simple scale that identifies four broad categories of relationship. You can try it for yourself. Pick a couple of people within your social network and answer the following two questions on a scale of 1 (not at all) to 6 (very much). When you are feeling in need of advice, understanding or a favour, how helpful is your connection? Likewise, how upsetting is your connection? People who score 1 on both questions are your indifferent relationships – a neighbour, perhaps, who is rather bland company with neither good nor bad qualities. Those who score highly on the first question, while getting the lowest possible rating on the second, are your supportive social ties – the people who are an unalloyed good in your life. Others are the mirror image, with the lowest score on the first question and high marks on the second. These are purely aversive relationships. You will probably do your best to avoid talking to them unless you are forced to interact, such as in a business meeting or at a family gathering. Finally, there is the fourth category: people who are both nice and nasty. Anyone with a score of 2 or more on both scales is considered an ambivalent connection – your frenemies. They may be incredibly generous when you have a problem yet can also lash out with a bitter put-down when they feel envious or threatened. Ambivalent connections could include a friend, parent, sibling, colleague or even a spouse – anyone with whom you have a love-hate relationship. And their ambivalence can come in many forms: it might be a lack of interest in your life rather than overt disrespect, or a general unreliability that means they are often unavailable when you need their support. It could be a partner who love-bombs you one day, but who is fiercely critical the next, leaving you unsure about their true feelings. We might hope that in such relationships, the good would outweigh the bad, with a net positive to our overall well-being. At the very least, you would expect them to be better for us than our aversive relationships. Unfortunately, the research suggests things aren’t so simple. Holt-Lunstad’s team, for example, hooked 102 people up to portable blood pressure monitors for three days. During any social interactions, the participants could press a button to trigger the device, and after they had finished the conversation, they recorded who they had met and rated them on the scales above. As you might expect, people’s blood pressure was higher when they met an ambivalent tie compared with when they met someone who was uncomplicatedly supportive. Surprisingly, however, the ambivalent ties also provoked a stronger reaction than aversive ones. The unpredictable nature of our interactions with frenemies is what makes them so bad for our health Martin Parr/Magnum Photos It gets worse. In another study, Holt-Lunstad and her colleague Benjamin Clark, also at Brigham Young University, found that simply knowing that an ambivalent connection was in the next room as participants prepared to give a speech was enough to send their blood pressure rocketing. It also slowed their recovery after the task. The frenemy didn’t need to say a word to evoke anxious feelings. In fact, even subliminal reminders of a frenemy can shatter our peace of mind. A team led by McKenzie Carlisle at the University of Utah asked people to take a reaction-time test. She found that rapidly flashing the name of an ambivalent connection on the computer screen – so quick that it couldn’t be consciously detected – amplified their stress response. Seeing the name of an entirely unpleasant connection failed to create such a large effect. It seems that our frenemies have us in a kind of stranglehold. We may depend on their support and try our best to please them, but that emotional investment makes their occasional nastiness especially hurtful. Moreover, the uncertainty about which side of them we are going to see – Dr Jekyll or Mr Hyde – only compounds the stress of meeting them, so that we feel anxious before they have even opened their mouths. Contrast this with our aversive social ties, which mean very little to us: if we know someone is a jerk, we can more easily discount their unkind behaviour. Frenemies can put extra strain on your heart and can raise levels of inflammation The long-term effects of ambivalent connections may be just as bad as having few connections. Through the stress they create, regularly interacting with frenemies can put extra strain on the heart and raise levels of bodily inflammation – both of which have been associated with an increased risk of mortality. The effects have even been seen in measures of cellular ageing. At the end of our chromosomes, we have protective caps called telomeres that prevent DNA from being damaged when cells replicate. As we age, our telomeres slowly wear down and, when they become too short, cells may start to malfunction or die. Shorter telomeres are thought to put us at greater risk of many of the diseases that come with ageing – and our ambivalent connections appear to contribute to their decline. If you live with someone who often makes you feel like you are on a knife edge, or if you regularly see friends who leave you feeling that way, you are more likely to have shortened telomeres, relative to other people of a similar age. Unpredictable bosses It isn’t just our physical health that is at stake. Good relationships with our colleagues are one of the best predictors of job satisfaction and resilience against burnout, so it should be little surprise that toxic dynamics can be a serious cause of workplace distress. Ambivalent bosses can be especially damaging. A recent survey examining 993 employees from 27 work groups found that bosses who provide unreliable support and sporadic unkindness can take a serious toll on their employees’ mental well-being, raising the risk of depression, anxiety and emotional exhaustion. The paradoxical nature of our ambivalent connections means that there is no simple solution. If you feel someone has become too toxic a presence in your life, you may decide to cut off contact – but that may not be possible if they are your boss or a family member, or if they are so deeply integrated into your social network that you would also risk losing supportive relationships with other people. So, what can be done? The problem with frenemies is that they are inconsistent, sometimes full of smiles and fun Pictorial Press Ltd/Alamy Simply being aware of the ambivalent nature of a relationship might offer some protection. Personally, I have found that knowledge of this research helps me to manage my expectations and mentally prepare myself for the mixed feelings that interacting with frenemies might bring. This allows me to focus more on the good in these people and to feel compassion for their more unpleasant streaks, while also attempting to reduce contact when I feel that they may only add to the stresses I am facing in other areas of my life. How to alter your personality: why your character isn't fixed in stone Traits like conscientiousness or extroversion might seem to define your character, but these aren't set in stone and new research reveals how anyone can change their personality – if they really want to Just as importantly, this research has prompted me to consider my own behaviour – are there relationships in which I am the frenemy? The truth isn’t always easy to swallow. Unlike my worst frenemies, I don’t tend to lash out with barbed comments and sarcasm, but I do often fail to show others the appreciation and respect I feel for them – accidental neglect that could be taken as a sign of indifference. I am surely not alone in this. Studies show that we often fail to express our gratitude as regularly as we could, either through thoughtlessness, shyness or the assumption that the other person will already know how important they are to us. I am resolved to be a little more mindful of my interactions with all my ties – indifferent, aversive, ambivalent and supportive. What’s more, I now know who to hold at arm’s length and who to keep close.

From your PV generation data, along with a bit of trig, you can probably get a good estimation of the direct solar beam power that is hitting your floor. That may account for the modest temperature rise. You may also find that your MVHR is supplying air at an elevated temperature as the OAT rises. It is often very hard to unpick what is happening. Correlation and PDF charts of the different inputs may show what is having the greatest effect.

Do you have a log of room air temperature?

I often read about ramblers/walkers getting killed by cows. Nearly always the 'victim' was a dog walker. There was a case, in this week's news, of a woman that got attacked by a longhorn, no mention of a dog. Made a change. As for electric bikes and scooters. Just yesterday, a teenage girl was wobbling down the middle of the street on an electric scooter. I pulled to the left, and then stopped. Stupid youth then scooted between me and the parked cars on my left. I should not have left a gap. As much as I dislike too much police enforcement (have lived in countries where it is a bit OTT), I really think that some things need to be enforced a bit more.

kWp kwp

M or it is milli watt hour.

That already happens via grid voltage limiting. So it will depend on the local accumulated generation and how much local diversion can happen. I think the UK is a long way off. Would take 25 years of nothing but physics lessons at school before the idea that PV does not work in the UK.

You may not have any. We also have 'air bricks', usually under a floor, for ventilation. He is right.

Rectify the leaks as well as you can. As you have forced ventilation (I seem to remember), you do not need to worry too much about what we call 'window trickle vents'.

Yes. We often hear, on here, that people are improving their airtightness by fitting new glazing.

The best thermal conductivity you can get i.e. the lowest U-Value.

What always amazes me is that people seem to think that it needs to be about 12 hours so that daytime and nigh time equal. How many days a year does that happen in the UK, 2.

We already pay to have it taken away, called the daily standing charge. It is always hard to compare different systems, in different countries, so no point trying in the case of PV.

It does sound like it was written by a PR/Marketing kiddy. Post up some pictures.

If you do go the GRP route, you need to make sure that there is a large radius on any up stands. Glass fibre matt does not like bending too much.

No he is not right. It is too small a difference to notice. It is thermal inertia, not thermal mass. The k-value becomes the over riding property, not the mass or heat capacity.

Not really for a couple of reasons. Generation capacity is set for a future date i.e. tomorrow at 3:00. Any demand is filled with gas generation, so the carbon intensity actually increased during times of low generation and demand i.e. 3:00 when nuclear and wind are doing the bulk of the work. It is a bit of a myth that the generation tracks demand, it is based on predicted demand and pre arranged generation capacity. When it goes wrong, you see huge price spikes for a short time. There was a radio show on about dynamic pricing, and how it is not like the old markets and bazaars. Rethink The 'carbon' price is around £40/tonne at the moment. Maybe that should be taken into account when costing out a system.