SteamyTea

https://www.kingspan.com/gb/en-gb/products/insulation-boards/insulation-technical-hub/articles-and-advice/what-are-u-values-r-values-and-lambda-values Basically how it reduces the power to keep one side at a fixed temperature.

Or Thermal Time Constant (the time it takes to drop or rise 1°C). Or just do it properly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_effusivity And never, ever us the common term.

Go the stored DHW route, electric showers are pretty crap really. Even a 10 kW shower is not that powerful.

Welcome. Decide on the foundation system first, it is where it all starts. Then go the timber frame route, things are much better when they are build in a factory.

Does your defrost come on at set times, and run for a set time? Wondering if it is a preventative measure, rather than the weather. As you have a deep slab that the pipes are in, is it driving a lot water out of it i.e. is your house humid. Water takes over 4 times as much energy to heat up, and the the evaporation losses are added to that. To evaporate a kg of water takes 2450 kJ/kg.

@PhilRobinson Only reason I questioned it was that I thought the SA had small, 1 kW heating elements. No idea where where I picked than up from, so may well have been wrong, or maybe some old units do have small elements. The chart looks fine to read off.

This happened when we were out of the country (lived in France then), and I had a bit of an argument on our return with a shop keeper (Martin's Newsagents) that there were 240 old pennies in a pound, not 200. Thieving bastards.

So is the heater 3 kW? (reading from chart 17:02 - 16:20 = ~0.40[minutes] and 2 kWh)

My neighbour had new windows fitted so popped around to see what everything looked like and got hatting to the fitter. He claimed that if you made a house airtight then it would be stuffy. I said the MVHR deals with that. He did not have a clue what I was talking about. He kept claiming that you need some 'holes' to 'stop the place overheating'. Neighbour still gets leaks, but they are nothing to do with the windows.

Right, then it makes sense to get a diesel powered CHP. It tis really only an old car engine and a generator put together. The clever parts of a CHP is the autostarting and phase matching, current sensing autostart would be useful, but your batteries would cover a lot of that. Phase matching is not necessary as you are off grid.

You can, my Mother has one, trouble is, it cost about £1800. Turntables are not needed these days (well for about 30 years) as they can magically swirl the microwaves around now. My Panasonic NN-CD78KS has a limit to how close it can be boxed in (there also needs to be a ventilation gap for the hob), so I have left it free standing, not what I planned, and still may put it under the hob with a cooling fan (why I got a current sensing switch). I have though, moved the bin to under the hob, though I still, after 16 years, not get used it not being by the door, but my pirouettes are coming on nicely.

How come, are the trucks different sizes?

Yes, I had forgotten this one.

I will take you up on it when I start the project. Next project is painting, did that for a living, so can think about the HA when I drip paint on the floor.

Lower power usage is the main one. I don't have traditional broadband, I just hotspot from my phone.

My bedroom window is SW facing, and 100 MPH winds are not uncommon here. Short of forgetting to latch the window when a storm hits (caused an interesting dream a few months back, it involved a dungeon, chains and the dead awakening), I do not find it a problem.

Is that the same LW that E7/10 uses to switch on/off. I have been told I need a smart meter by March 2023 as it is being turned off.

I keep meaning to cobble my RPi's and ESP's together to send messages/data to each other. Seems that Mosquito is the usual method, just never managed to get it to work, I think I am missing something basic in my understanding how it all talks. I would like to do it without a central router if possible i.e. a mesh network.

I think my Panasonic Combi oven is similar. And the grill function is back to front. Power 1 is max Power 3 is lowest. Imagine if that was an amplifier, Spinal Tap would have lost the joke "Turn it down to 11". My Bosch washing machine is: Turn the knob to select program Set timer on delay capacitance button (that looks like the other 3, temperature, spin speed and one I have no idea what it does). Touch On/Off. It has another 4 buttons, but I ignore them. And every time you want to start washing, you have to go though the whole cycle again. You can't just reload, put in powder and press On/Off (like I could on my old Bosch, the Hotpoint, the Hoover and the Candys). Induction hob (Russel Hobbs) is easy though, it is like Windows. Always press the Start button, then select the zone, set power, set time (optional), if you need to adjust, press zone and then power.

Leaving aside the size of the individual components for a while, have you considered a combination of PV, CHP (probably home made), with thermal and electrical storage. The bulk of summer power would be from the PV, with the excess charging up the TS and a relatively small battery bank (4 kWh or so). Then in the winter the bulk is delivered by the CHP (a 20:40 split between electricity and thermal maybe). Again excess stored. The generator can be rectified to DC, and as long as the voltage us low (<600V I think) it can use the PV islanding inverters). A CHP system can run off bottled gas, or even gas from a bio digester. Really depends on how hands on you want to be. Making a CHP unit can be an interesting side project. Making a sound proof 'box' for it will be even more interesting, a hole in the ground may help.

@cl2702 Rather than me give you the low down on WBS, have a quick Google about particulates and other problems with them. It is the unseen pollution from them that is the main problem.

Thank goodness that wood burners only produce life giving natural wonders. Be dreadful if the flue allowed creosote or carbon monoxide to enter the house.

@patp Get everyone involved, including the borehole owner, to check their insurance policies. That may be a lower cost option than unilaterally starting a claim. Civil law is expensive for all concerned, so even the insurance people may prefer that option.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rylands_v_Fletcher

Too right, I know a good deal when I see one, even if I do not personally take full advantage of it. Just looked at BJ's speech, and seems that there is going to be a massive increase in fish landings by UK boats from just over 50% to a massive 66%, in 5 years like (I think that is what he said). So no difference, and i the next 5 years, things will be totally different. What a (expletive deleted)ing nonsense, the whole things.