SteamyTea

I used almost 3 times as much energy when I first moved to my house. Th only things I spend any serious money on was getting new window panes. The old ones had blown so took the opportunity to up the gap to 16mm. The rest of the improvements were a few quid on more loft insulation and draft proofing. And a washing line (£2 and the biggest energy saving device there is).

Seem to remember that can be changed if you have the installer password. There were loads of this he you could do once given access to the 'proper ' software. One common was to up the voltage a bit to stop them cutting out. Very illegal, but done a lot is rural areas. I never did it, all my time was taken up with setting the country code to GB. Something sparkies failed to do, no matter how many times I told them.

Is that the one that Wind & Sun sell? If it is a very similar price, and reliable, then worth having. Though I am a SMA fan.

They disconnect, but don't island. Islanding is totally isolation from the grid.

Have you thought of making the design as modular as you can i.e. a living room is x times the area/length/width of a bedroom. Then think about things like kitchen and bathrooms as these take standard sized 'stuff'. Thinking of standard stuff, see what sizes of timber and sheet are easy to get hold of. Don't really want anything that needs to be made special. And, if you are fairly practical, or even f you are not, how about making a scale model or 3.

I offered to pay extra to not have a sunroof once. It was not an option. It leaked, as I knew it would. Seems it is a very British thing from the 80s and 90s to want t sunroof, hardly see them these days.

Yes PV = photovoltaic ST = solar thermal I am not sure how easy it is to go over the 16A per phase these days. A lot of it depends on what else is connected locally.

To run a PV/Battery system during a power cut you need to isolate from the grid. This saves linesmen getting a surprise. There are islanding system that can do this, but they tend to start getting expensive.

You may be able to connect more PV to it though.

would it be worth picking one that is larger than you need? Not too large mind. So say you need an 8 kW one, pick a 12 kW.

And for that.

If new to self build I would have thought firm price was the way to go. If it is too high a price, then look at what is needed to reduce it. Better to take the risk at the start than two thirds of the way through.

Worth having a read of this. Bit old now, but don't think much had changed. https://microgen-database.sheffield.ac.uk/uploads/zinnia/files/New_Guide_to_installlation_of_PV_systems-MCS.pdf

PU keeps shrinking until it starts to crumble once the bacteria get into it. I am not sure if phenolic is better. Liquid phenolic resins seem to last well, better than polyester. My one worry with SIP is the shrinkage of the core.

Got better after I moved away, but oddly Cornwall is going down hill.

This year, for only the second time, my renewal actually went down in price. Oddly Tesco was the last one to do that, but then they almost wanted double the premium year before last. I think they may want out of the car insurance business. A site worth hacking into then. Get free interweb across the land, and no need for thousands of satellites lighting up the night sky.

Yes, scaffolding is quite important when working on roofs, it catches you a gutter height when you fall down. Have you looked at integrating the PV into the roof? Saves on tiles, but if the roof is basically sound, easier to just bolt though the tiles with a normal rail system.

Just depends on what your chosen supplier can deliver. The TF factory near me knocks out about 70 houses a week I believe. And about a couple of days to erect on site. Seems the internal fitting out is the slow bit, but that is similar to any other house. Just what I have seen on the two that are local to me. One was done by the owner, just about finished 2 1/2 years after he started. The other is a lot bigger, and is now 18 months since the ground works started, and only just had the roof trusses lifted into place in the last week.

As far as I know, you can still get it, and after 30 years it gets paid off. Though there may be an upper age limit. I got one in my mid 40s, and a bursary as well. Just don't get a lodger as you loose all your your CT exception. Cost me £2500.

Been keeping an eye on a couple of them down here. Not fast. Factory built timber frame is preferably the fastest, but as SIPs is really just timber frame with the insulation already fitted, should be just as quick.

Have you considered timber frame, or even block work. Block work may be the safest route as it is well understood in all regions of the country.

You can become a student, drag that out for 4 years on a BSc and teaching qualification, then another 4 on a PhD. By then you will get the winter weather payment. And I managed to save cash when I was a student.

I suspect you would end up with kindling and broken tiles. They are probably trying it on as I suspect it would cost £10k to get it taken away.

That is because I live 100 miles from any culture. Well, if you can call Exeter cultured. I was thinking about this just this morning as I was driving into town to do the banking. If I just drove to work and back, I would use about 4.8 MWh. Not sure if parity us a good thing or not. Interestingly, once I had trained my old lodger, my energy usage was not much more, though one year, I did manage to get my house usage down to 3.8 MWh. Was a mild winter, and I was cold at home.

Really just offset until the country has an true excess of very low carbon generation. But I use about 5 MWh/year for the house and 20 MWh/year for the car. Only 1 car here, and one person.