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Posts
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Days Won
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Everything posted by SteamyTea
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30kW PV, All electric heating, is this mad?
SteamyTea replied to DevonBarn's topic in Photovoltaics (PV)
And a lot sunnier I suspect. There has been a lot of research done in Denver. That is further south than Madrid. At the moment it is 15⁰C where I am, and looks like this. That is St. Michael's Mount in the fog. -
Philips Hue remote control not working
SteamyTea replied to Adsibob's topic in Networks, AV, Security & Automation
I have no idea what that means. Greatest of All Time? -
Timber framed VS SIP build.
SteamyTea replied to gustyturbine's topic in Structural Insulated Panels (SIPs)
please explain how deciding on how I could have done this by not deciding on the level of insulation I have? Your heating times were similar to mine, that was more to do with the being in the SW. I would have to model your old house and increase the insulation levels, then see what the marginal cost would have been. No, I would have not been surprised I would have been. Domestic energy prices had risen by less than inflation for 2 decades, but oddly stayed at about 5% of median household earnings (more to do with falling real wages). They will gradually go back to that 5%, but the nominal price will have increased. This same argument about diminishing returns has been going on since the 1970s and can be proved to be true. You can by a large family tent, or 4, and stick a fan heater in them. Would cost about about £110 per tent, including the tent. The heat load will be about 1.5 kW, so £15/day for 8 months of the year (£3,500/year). But you save the price of building a house, say £300,000, so if you had 4 family tents with fan heaters, that is: Price of House - Price of tents and heaters = 300000 - (4 x 110) = 299,560 299,560 / 3500 = 85.6 years. So one can argue that insulation, of any sort, is totally pointless from a financial viewpoint (it is the argument that the building trade still uses). The alternative is to think about thermal loads and the associated CO2e emissions. Is it not better to reduce both as much as we can? I am not saying that we need to put a metre thickness on all walls (would make my house 2 metres wide inside), but reducing, at the time of building, from the 0.25 W.m-2.K-1 to 0.125 W.m-2.K-1 would only have reduced my floor area by 8%, and as it is only about 25 metres of wall to insulate, the marginal cost would have been pretty small. Same with floor insulation. The one thing that building regs has improved upon. -
Timber framed VS SIP build.
SteamyTea replied to gustyturbine's topic in Structural Insulated Panels (SIPs)
But not the planet. If I had told you a decade ago that energy prices would tripled, almost over night, you would have laughed. Could have reduced your heating times by a third, and your peak heating times by 3. -
30kW PV, All electric heating, is this mad?
SteamyTea replied to DevonBarn's topic in Photovoltaics (PV)
What latitude is that place, and how different is the weather? -
Timber framed VS SIP build.
SteamyTea replied to gustyturbine's topic in Structural Insulated Panels (SIPs)
An old American girlfriend of mine used the word Porridge for semen. Could that, once anglicize, become 6 on the list 'load of bollocks'? -
Philips Hue remote control not working
SteamyTea replied to Adsibob's topic in Networks, AV, Security & Automation
It uses the TOR network. Set up as read only at the moment I hope. When I get a bit of spare time i.e. not decorating, I intend to play with it a bit more. The rest of the network should be safe, until then as I can only log in in the local network via PuTTY/WinSCP/DOS command prompt. One of the things I want to learn about is using certificates as authentication. If you want to have a go at cracking into it, I can send you a link. Though I have posted it up here before. -
Philips Hue remote control not working
SteamyTea replied to Adsibob's topic in Networks, AV, Security & Automation
Is Hue stuff made in China? Post up your login details and I shall have a go at setting them. My free to set up secure webserver, running on a 10 quid Raspberry Pi is still running reliably. Shows it is 18.6⁰C in my back garden. -
Timber framed VS SIP build.
SteamyTea replied to gustyturbine's topic in Structural Insulated Panels (SIPs)
Yes, but at least we can calculate the conductivity. Thermal insulation is really down to how little energy you want to leave the building, if you start to base decisions on diminishing returns, it rather misses the point. All nonsense really as there is no difference in cleanliness between a £100 shower and a £500 shower. Same as a kitchen top makes no difference to the taste of the food. -
Timber framed VS SIP build.
SteamyTea replied to gustyturbine's topic in Structural Insulated Panels (SIPs)
I have to agree with that. Should really be called thermal inertia. Thermal inertia assumes all the wall/roof buildup plays an equally important part, which it does not. Then stick in an oversized SW facing window and all the calculations go, literally, out the window. Cellulose is good for sound damping, but I don't know where adding an extra 50mm stops being of real benefit. -
Recommendations for electric radiator
SteamyTea replied to SilverShadow's topic in Central Heating (Radiators)
Be careful when choosing and 'remote control' that is cloud based, the service can be pulled anytime the provider feels like it. As @JohnMo says, go bigger. The room warm up times will be faster as well. -
The fees and charges to set a loan up. I always took out variable, repayment mortgages, never once had to pay a fee. My sister, who worked for a bank, took out fixed rate, endowment mortgages, her rates where always higher, and she had a shortfall on the endowment. So had a supplementary charge. This was back in the 80 and 90s, but with a simple repayment loan, you pay of a bit of the capital each month, so the interest payable on the remain capital is also reducing. I got lucky that the loan I took out in 1986, and managed to overpay a little each year, was not hiked up as much in 1991/2.
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One day course was it? Qualification by attendance.
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Silent Spring was based on it, even though the science that Rachael Carson based the book on was rubbished several years before. Strange how some things stick. Not saying that DDT is a good thing, but environmentally agriculture is the worse thing, except for mass starvation.
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I was being facetious, the complications introduced to the financial markets over the last 20 years or so has just confused everyone, including the lenders. My old boss, who was a clever bloke, always worked on 3 times, he told me that in 1981.
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1660 and after would be more fun. https://youtu.be/hVWEaxiRmAo
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Kind of going back to the 19th Century that. Some on here will like that, what they voted to leave the EU for. Bring on the childhood illnesses.
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Makes me wonder if there is a market for a simple, repayment load, say half a % above BoE base rate. Variable, so not fixed, no set up fees. Say a fixed period of 25 years. Oh hang on. Maybe an insurance backed loan, borrower just pays the interest and the lender takes a small payment to invest wisely. When maturity comes, the lender cashes in and pays of the loan. Oh hang on.
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What is that actually telling us? That they think a very serious crash is coming (if the borrower defaults then, I think, the lender has to step in and collect rent). If a serious crash does come, landlords will loose their customers as they will be buying. Going to be interesting.
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I would think that the banks know what outstanding loans they have, and what percentage of defaults they can stand, that is just normal business practice. What they cannot know, but can influence a bit, is property price deflation, one they they do not want as it affects their balance sheet. By dropping the interest rates a bit, they will reduce their default rate and maybe reduce house price deflation. It is a bit like a short term sale when someone has over order a part, better to get something for those fresh buns than get nothing for them.
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Can we still get DDT. Side benefit is you won't get malaria. Always find it odd that what we can smell may discourage what we don't want. I very really see suggestions that smearing human excrement around foot paths will discourage dogs. Different fauna have very different senses to us.
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There comes a point where low temperature renders something useless though. Think having a shower, the bathroom may be at 21⁰C, but you won't enjoy a shower at 25⁰C (unless you are weird). Same with cooking, a salad at ambient temperature can be alright, but too much above it and it wilts, cooking a chicken needs much higher than ambient. I put swimming water into the latter group, needs to be 34⁰C or above. I hate shivering and goosebumps.
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My parents had a polytunnel over their pool. I can assure you that they don't stay warm in winter.
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Welcome Really will need a lot more information about the building. Pictures would help as well.
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Not watched the video (watching the mist come in over Mount's Bay instead), but are those symptoms a sign of a poorly designed system, rather than just one component?
