SteamyTea

Very good point. I don't have a lawn, and would never water one if I did. I have the most expensive tap water in the country, so don't wash my car either.

Yes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emissivity

My old cat never liked the vets after the first trip.

Depends on the angles. If, down here, a 1 kW array can produce 38 kWh a day in December, that implies a 6 kW, south facing, vertical array will do. My current usage is 3 kWh a day at the moment. That will go up to about 20 in December and January.

Building on what @JohnMo has said, to run a heat pump, and just about everything else, you need a minimum power. Just knowing the energy (the kWh) needed a day is of little use. The usual way around this for off gridders is to store as much as you can/need thermally, then what you need for the rest as electrical storage in batteries. This runs the risk of double counting usage i.e. need 6 kWh for DHW which can be supplied purely from a resistance heater, so 6 kWh, or purely from a heat pump, so 2 to 3 kWh, what you don't do is say your DHW takes between 6 and 9 kWh. It takes 6 kWh. Resistance heaters can be designed to have different resistance, so can be used to take small amounts of power when it is deliverable, rather than only when there is enough power generated i.e. 3 kW. I am not sure what the minimum power input is for any individual make of inverter, but there will be a minimum input. Worth looking into that as it will set the minimum array size.

Module orientation and altitude is important, especially for winter generation. Module power is proportional to the product of both the altitude and the azimuth. Energy is the product of the mean power and the hours of daylight. So two extreme examples, with a south facing, 1 kWp array. First is laying flat to the ground, second is 90° to the ground. Very big difference in winter generation.

@MikeSharp01 Any chance you can repost that in my blog (maybe a bit of editing for context), more appropriate there.

First thing is to go to PVGIS and work out what yield you can expect.

Amazing, looks so real. https://www.steelydan.com/

I initially tried to do that, but my programming skills are not good enough. I tested at 1 'flashes' a second and it seemed fine (3.6 kW I think). At 10 flashes a second (36 kW) it lost about 10% as it wrote the logfile. Been trying to find a good way to log the pulses directly and log the collected from the LED pulses on the same RPi. Not had much luck yet, seems to slow it down quite a lot i.e. a few seconds to write to both log files.

Just like normal, start at the top and heat a bit up, then carefully scrape away.

As usual, when comparing lime and cement based render, finding real numbers for porosity, water retention, and vapour permeability is just about impossible. No wonder there is so much confusion.

Have you tried steaming it. I usually get most wall paints off with a wallpaper steamer. It can take a few minutes of steaming to get the really stubborn stuff off.

I think you are understanding it correctly. There is an optimum width for an air gap to reduce convection currents, for Windows it is about 16mm. It varies with height, more than width, but is affected by the dissimilar properties of the materials (the turbulence, not the materials). "All models are wrong: some models are useful"

Right where you will be fitting the panels, in January. You can encapsulate expanding foam over it. Or get a 'jamboy'. https://youtu.be/2KekuGUh6_c

Did you use the same code as I do, or have you refined it more? I cast the LED and magnet into a bit of flexible gas pipe.

Except for the trillions that have been spent on engineering and education. And it still kills on a regular basis.

Says, if I remember correctly, the man that drives without a seatbelt and refuses vaccinations.

An important point. It does not matter how brilliant the insulation properties are on paper, or of paper, if it is fitted badly, incorrectly, or is just unsuitable (water absorbing), then it will not perform as well as expected.

Thought I read they had been taken into public ownership already. Still, they have 3 new reactors about to come on stream. 1 in France and two in other places. Wouldn't it be great if a state backed company came to the UK, especially to a financially deprived area like the West Country, and build a new reactor. All those cheap, low carbon, electrons flowing down the M5. What is not to like.

As much as this does. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrocuting_an_Elephant

Guessing here, does it mean electrical power

Gerald is in France. They probably have more sense than to design an organisation like MCS, but will have more administration, some will still be available in 500 years.

What is the temperature distribution for your weather. Extremes are all well and good, but they are just extremes.

Bristol City