SteamyTea

"According to Andrew Wilson, assistant professor in environmental management at Glasgow Caledonian University in Scotland, one Starship launch produces 76,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (a measure combining different types of greenhouse gases in one unit). That's 2.72 times more emissions than those produced by a single SpaceX Falcon 9 launch but only 0.96 of the emissions produced by a Falcon Heavy liftoff. Both the Falcon 9 and the Falcon Heavy combust the much dirtier oil-based rocket fuel RP-1, so their carbon footprint per ton launched is much higher. The Falcon 9, for example, has less than one-sixth the payload capacity of Starship." Was an amazing RTE though. The automated control must be phenomenal. There was a bit on the radio about space launches and the environment, I think it may have been a World Service broadcast, so fell asleep to it.

For over 20 years there has been talking of a carbon tax on energy, I just don't understand why it has not been fully implemented. Overall it would not increase the amount we pay in taxes. The carbon price is around £40/tonne at the moment. A good gas boiler probably produces 0.25 kg CO2/kWh. So a penny per kWh. Our electrical generation is at a slightly lower level 0.225 kg CO2/kWh, so 0.9p. Now those numbers could have a multipler applied to them, that multiplier could be dynamically variable to take into account domestic price stability, generation mix and international gas prices. It really does not need to be complicated or expensive, it just needs to be implemented.

Yes, but it is probably not a real problem. This week's Curious Cases was about a similar thing, the 5 seconds rule, or is it 3 seconds. Usually a silver coating. From here "The continued presence of silver on coated tubes has been shown for as long as three weeks, and coated tubes have demonstrated lower colonization rates for 19 of 21 bacterial strains tested"

It could be because of the location. Old houses tend to be closer to the town centres, or in remote locations. Newer houses tend to be on the outskirts of towns or close to main roads.

I cannot see how a coated pipe surface would fundamentally change the bacterial levels in an airflow, just not enough area, mixing and time. If bacterial growth in HVAC systems was a real problem, they they would not be allowed in buildings.

Do you have some hourly data for your consumption, your summer usage seems very high.

I would need to see the detailed quote to be able to judge that i.e. is it for a 500 W PV system with a basic A2AHP, or for a 10 kW PV system with batteries and a totally new A2WHP system in a 10 room house. We think that the fuel companies are ripping us off, and the competitions commissions seem to agree, but I am always amazed that I can find the fuel for my car, when I want (near enough), at the quality specified, for £1.3*/litre. Fantastic service when you think about it. I have just thought of a better example. For some reason, my local bus service started charging a maximum of £2 per journey, this has recently doubled to £4. People are winging that this increase means they cannot afford to take the kids to school. 10 years ago, it would have cost them £5.20 (last time I took a bus, almost). So no one is being ripped off in reality.

Loads of info here: https://www.thewpa.org.uk This one may have the info. https://www.thewpa.org.uk/_files/ugd/65ba63_e63cb92bfa184cb7b07b96bbbe32259f.pdf

I think there is a limit to how much knowledge can be dumbed down before only legislation can replaced it. Taking it to a natural limit, much loved by the right wing in politics, why bother with any education, or any sort.

As above. The GRP is just a water/weatherproof coating in your instance, it is not structural at all.

Yes, and beautifully highlighted by @ProDave's statement above. It is often a case of people mixing things up and not realising there is a difference. Reducing CO2/km has nothing to say about NOX or particulates. They have other limits layed down in legislation. In someways it is a shame that housing is not treated the same as vehicles. An annual check and if it fails, you have the choice to repair or replace. Failure to do so means it is effectively handed to the state for disposal. My car costs me more to run than my house, and mine did 72 MPG on my last tankful, but it has a mass on of 1576 kg dry. My first diesel was a 205 and that did around 50 MPG and had a mass of 935 kg. The emission were dreadful, though exact figures are hard to come by now. Pop my current engine into the 205 body and more power torque and milage.

I think the biggest problem in changing household heating systems is the unbelievable prejudice to new technology, just think back to Dieselgate. People still believe that our government at the time told us that we MUST buy diesel cars, and now government is now telling us that we MUST NOT buy them. People still believe that the embodied carbon and energy in renewable energy system is greater than they can ever pay back, never been true. The times when the sun does not shine and the wind does not blow, well a quick look at the UKs power generation shows that this has never happened, and never will. People often say they they are all for renewables, but they need to be in the right place i.e. not near them. Well the truth is, for an efficient system, they do need to be near them, with turbines up high and PV on hillsides, facing the right way. I take a special interest in this as I live in a place with great wind and solar resources (for the UK). I often point out that Penzance has a windturbine and it cannot be seen from most places. If a windfarm was installed over say 5 hectares of land, a mile from Land's End. No one would say it is spoiling the view, the view is the ocean, not the grade 4 farmland behind it. People say that covering good farm land with PV will effect food security, how/why. No farmer will rent or sell his most productive farmland for the income potential from renewables, farming still pays better. Wind and solar are put on unproductive land, what the rest of us call scrubland. About 30% of farmland is not farmed. We throw away about 30% of the food we produce. I was in a conversation with a maintenance person the other day about cooking on gas compared to cooking on an induction hob, he knows I am a chef. He told me that there is nothing batter than cooking on gas. After a bit of probing, it transpires that he cooks on an old electric heater and had never used an induction hob. He also says killer wots an our, but he is from Bolton. As many of you know, I like collecting data and analysing it for my amusement. We often get people on here wanting to know how much their heating system should cost to run, or why the usage is so high, but are unwilling to look at their data, or spend a few quid getting some monitoring kit. I tend to loose interest in their problems.

You can calculate if from the dry mass of the harvested crop and the energy conversion of that crop (around 0.2% in UK). So if a m2 of land receives 100 kWh of sunlight, a 'plant' will convert that to about 0.2 kWh. If you extrapolate that to the world, include the poles and all oceans, lakes etc, and burnt all the biomass there is, which includes all the animals, and us, then there is enough energy to last about 350 days and current usage. PV on the other hand converts about 12% of the incoming energy , so 1.2 kWh for every 100 kWh received. 6 times greater. These are rough figures from memory, but quite simply, burning biomass is pointless as an energy source, especially when you take the conversion from solid, to gas, to thermal to delivered energy into account. Don't get suckered into claims about Brazilian sugar cane as a bio crop, while about 6 times better than maize, it is still low compared to even wind power (which is about half that of PV for the UK). Brazil has an ideal climate to grow sugar cane (at the moment) and very few restrictions of farming practices i.e. water and chemical inputs. And they steal land from the indigenous population, then cut down the forest, decimate the local environment and move on. Read this, as old as it is now. https://www.withouthotair.com/ Download here: https://www.inference.org.uk/sustainable/book/tex/sewtha.pdf

Which has the same emissions as natural gas (near enough as it does depend on the gas composition). We are now about 170ppm of CO2 above our pre-industrial levels, so releasing 'last years sequestered CO2 does (expletive deleted) all to stabilise the atmospheric conditions. We have to stop combustion technologies, that is the end of it. We have the technologies to do this, it is really just a matter of doing it.

Welcome It is great that someone with limited experience of building just 'has a go'. I wish more people would do it. What are the dimensions of it?

Does your household insurance cover this sort of thing? Some do I believe.

Not that it is not good, thermally it is brilliant. Just most people dislike working with it. If you are factory/shed building panels, then it is easy to the quality needed, fitting onsite between brick/block, a nightmare. Having said that, you could use it to IWI/EWI

You can fit PIR into a cavity, but it is a pain to do properly, you end up with too many air paths that are impossible to seal.

Welcome We like pictures on here, so feel free to post up relevant stuff.

Spray some in your rusty nuts and seized rod. Then post up pictures.

Welcome. Are upsidedown houses popular in Australia? Really, what did that involve?

As @JohnMo says. The technical side is really very easy, just working out areas, volumes and multiplying by some constants. You will learn so much about your house and why things are done in a certain way. That knowledge will really pay dividends for decades.

Maybe Section 75 or a small claims court action if you believe that the report was not fit for purpose i.e. not what you asked them to do.

Can you get that back?

Who wants to finish the :two nuns in a bath together" joke.