SteamyTea

The company I used to work for (the bunch of crooks), decided to do heat pumps. As we were going for MCS accreditation (already had the PV side of it), I had to do all the paperwork/calculations. Was all pretty easy. An experienced plumber, who had no experience of heat pumps, did the pipe fitting, an electrician did the wiring. They never got it to work (I had left the company in disgust by then). As far as I could see, there was nothing too complicated about the set up. A largish thermal store, and expansion thingy or two, the ASHP, pipes to over sized (actually correctly sized) radiators and a simple thermostat controller. Still fail to see why they screwed it up so much. The room by room calculations and the 99% rule where easy to work out, the rest of the MCS side was just a paper trail really i.e approved kit, qualified people, willing to be inspected. I think, and am willing to be corrected, that what scares people about plumbing and wiring, is really lack of product knowledge. We often know what we want, but don't know if it exists or not, and what it is called.

Or you are an accountant/serial bankrupt are are planning the 'exit' strategy.

You may find, after speaking to your SE that you only need 5 bolts, rather than 5 (or what ever). Depending on where the one without any concrete in the block is, it may not matter. So first call is to the SE I would think. Now remind me, why did you choose this construction method?

If they are an MCS company, I think they can be reported for that sort of thing. Not that it would do any good. Have you spoken to your mate about Bitcoins

Tell him that putting silver foil on the DC side improves efficiency and that clingfilm on the lower half of the modules can do the same.

I used to work out the most efficient way to fit modules. Really comes down to the roof shape and the number of modules that you want fitted. If space is no object, then portrait as it, as you say, reduce the amount of rail an makes the wiring easy.

Didn't Tesla up the range of the cheapo 60 when that hurricane hit Florida last year, cause they had the large battery pack in anyway. https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/10/16283330/tesla-hurricane-irma-update-florida-extend-range-model-s-x-60-60d

Did a Masters at Penryn, not been back since.

Surely their solicitor sorted it out when they bought the place, it is what they are paid to do. Mind you, there was a bit on the radio last week about some bloke that bought a leasehold flat, then got presented with a £17,000 bill for work that was done a few years before he bought the place.

I think part of the problem is that there were so many 'roof for rent' schemes that proof of ownership is a bit hard to establish sometimes.

I had shiny new, fixed focus, acrylic lenses embedded into my eyeballs a decade ago. Fantastic colours, can spot a natural blonde at 500 yards, absolutely hopeless up close. Makes the latest G/F look like a 22 year old.

I will, when I get them and have time to play. I have some particulate monitors on order too, so a few project I want to get up and running.

Well I have bought a few quids worth of WEMOS D1 mini V3.0.0 from AliExpress, so shall wait until they turn up and see what can be done with them. Will be nice to have just one RPi storing all the data rather than several (cause it makes it neater). Have to work out a way to make a decent battery pack.

Does make a change to have a southwesterly this year, means it is a bit warmer.

It was very windy from the SW here last night, and at about 8AM today was very heavy rain. Thankfully the leaks I fixed that caused my window to leak seem to have worked. You may be able to GRP the existing tray, does depend what plastic it is made from.

Is the Windows software free and unlimited. I like the idea that I can run some basic Python code on it as that is all I use. At those prices it is not exactly taking a large risk anyway.

Seems the Wemos work with the RPi, is that right?

Just had a look at the video for the PyBoard https://micropython.org/ Pretty nifty as it has a RTC, DAC ADC built in. Not sure if it can support wifi, or Bluetooth at a push, if it can work with 1wire, bme280 and DHT22, but if it does, it could be very useful.

Have you got some links to the Chinese stuff, don't really want to buy the wrong things by mistake. 3 weeks wait is nothing, been thinking about this for a decade or more. My old CurrentCost has a battery life of years, how do they manage that from a couple of DDs. I could open one up and see what is inside, or get @JSHarristo have a look and see if he can copy it cheaply.

Been thinking about this for a while, but have no idea where to start and what I need. These ESP8266 https://www.ebay.co.uk/i/291358321099?chn=ps&adgroupid=13585920426&rlsatarget=pla-142405585506&abcId=&adtype=pla&merchantid=109754416&poi=&googleloc=1007013&device=c&campaignid=207297426&crdt=0 Have a few pins on them, some for power, some for data. Is it as simple as connecting up say a BMP280 to the correct pins, find the wireless signal, connecting to it, reading the data off and then doing something clever with that data so it makes sense. Or do I need more kit to program the ESP8266, think I read somewhere that you need to program them. Basically it would be nice to make a few wireless sensors to scatter around the place, might also be good to make something to read the flashing LED on my electric meter (like the old CurrentCost could do). So HELP

I used about 46 GB and I was away a couple of three days. So looks like your family usage is pretty low. (I have downloaded a lot of new OSs for the RPI in the last few days)

So you can set the diversion depending on what you think best i.e. 1 kW to immersion OR 500 W to ASHP, if you want. (I hope the rest of the stuff I wrote was partially correct)

Get intouch with the MCS and see what it costs to be registered. Only a phone call away.

Those DIY kits are probably not available all the time though as they will be bankrupt stock. The only way to find out for sure is to call the people up and ask what the price is delivered to your door. I will admit that the price of PV from the government data was higher than I thought We were selling installations at that price 5 years ago (probably because the company did not pay suppliers, staff, failed to correct faults, was run by an idiot...). When I was involved with PV, the largest single, non hardware, expense was the sales commission, often about £800. I doubt if anyone gets that sort of cash these days. I never remember the MCS costs being an issue. The fact that I cannot remember what they are means they were never an issue. No one ever mentioned that we can sell at a premium because we had MCS, probably because everyone had MCS. It was possible to win or lose a sale on a fiver back then (just as the rate changed from 41 to 22p). The company of thieves I worked for (I left for ethical reasons) would usually 'throw in' an extended inverter warrantee and some data logging, but never actually deliver it.

I am not sure that the MCS premium is anything like £2000. If the installer can get modules at 50p/W, then that is a couple of grand for a 4 kWp system. 2 guys to install going to be £200, electrician about the same, so £400 Rail and fittings probably about £300 Inverter about £1000 Scaffold maybe £300 if easy, £700 if hard, let us say another £400 Office costs around £200. So we are up to £4300 There may be some sales commission that needs to be added on and I have not added any profit for the company yet. But let us say that the cost of install a system is around £5000 to £5500. There is not going to be another £2000 added to that, the market would not stand it (actually it might once I saw some data). I suspect that companies that are installing PV these days are just paying the MCS registration charge out of normal profit and not charging a premium. I seem to remember that the fee was not that high (a few hundred quid). If that is the case, short of fitting yourself by ignoring most normal rules for health and safety, or you already have everything in place because it is a new build, I don't think that it is worth not getting an MCS system and claiming FiTs. I think it is way too easy to find 4 kWp of modules on eBay for a very low price and assume that a registered installer is paying no more. The very cheap modules are probably from a bankrupt company, so they distort the market. I found these at 40p/W https://www.cclcomponents.com/trina-solar-275w-honey-polycrystalline-solar-module-60-cell-silver-frame?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIz5ak6YLr2AIVTbftCh2_xgTrEAQYAyABEgJdIvD_BwE But that would only reduce my fag packet estimate by £500. A quick look at the government data (I like data, takes the guess work out) https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/616027/Cost_data_summary_2016_17.xlsx Show that in 2016/2017 the mean price was £1866/kW installed for up to 4 kW2 systems. So around £7500. There is quite a variation £1749 if installed in January, £1977 if installed in April. Choose your installation date carefully. There is less of a variation between the upper and the lower prices, around £36/kWp on average, but goes to £41 in December, January and February. Now those prices are not from all the MCS installation and are just prices reported. Most, I suspect, will be retrofits, so more expensive, and a lot will be sold to greedy people that want to convert low returns on cash savings to a slightly better return (spending an extra £7500 on a hybrid car would give a better return). So while the prices are probably near enough right, they are not representative for people like us that take a detailed interest.