SteamyTea

Start a new thread about it.

That is your own fault for going to Launceston!! If it is not in Bude, it is not worth having

Rather going off topic (my fault), so feel free to start a new thread about it.

Should we not be thinking about the the long term, regardless of how long the current occupier is in the house. Not that hard to get a rough picture. Just some multiplication really. So the first thing to work out is the mass of the floor i.e. the length, width and depth, then the mass i.e. volume times density. Then you look up the specific heat capacity of the floor material and multiply that by the temperature difference (how much hotter it is than the air) and the mass. There are other things to look at such as the different losses and areas between the ground, edges and the actual room, but they can wait for now.

Have you done any figures to see how much difference slab thickness would actually make? There is a lot of talk about thermal storage and buffering in concrete floors, but very little real data or accurate models.

The way I see it, the less moving parts there are, the better. Also maintenance is something to think about. The PVC one I made has been in the loft for a few years now, probably 4. I have never opened it up to have a look. I may just do that when I get a few minutes (and take some pictures). I am off to look at waves now as the wind is blowing a treat (40 MPH and 10° North of West). High tide is at around 2PM on the North Coast, so may have a coffee on the way and just kill a bit of time (has to be better than going up in loft).

Seems more complicated than what I made. I shall have to see if I can find the old pictures and drawings of it. I did wonder if it would be possible to make some simple heat pipes (copper pipe and boiling water/alcohol) and stick them half in the warm airflow and half in the cold airflow (or whatever is actually needed). But after seeing that candlestick holder I am going to make them instead and forget all about my heating bill worries

My very first attempt was with tin foil, was hard to work with (it tore easily) and was noisy (rustling). I then used steel plates, but in the end I used some thin PVC as it was easy to work with. Weighed less too.

I fancy a rotating drum one, had an oil filled (I think) one on the waste timber burner at work back in the early 90's. It seemed pretty good. @JSHarris can you knock up a quick sketch for what you have in mind? I found making a cross flow one pretty easy but I like the idea of changing the efficiency by changing the rotation speed more (or less).

I know nothing about all this, but from a quick scan of the list, seems to me that you can do a lot of that work yourself, if you have time that is. If you are not happy with your SE, then sack him, seems to me that he does not want your business and is waiting for you to make the move.

Ideally yes, but as the plates are really thin, it does not matter too much.

QCAD looks a lot like TurboCad, and there are enough 'free' copies of that about on the internet.

Dag Off

Reminds me of a small touring caravan. You stand up and hit your head on a shelf.

Even though solar thermal (ST) will work well all year round, you may find that photovoltaic (PV) is the better option, even for your domestic hot water (DHW). It needs no servicing, no moving parts (apart from an inverter fan), gives you 'power flexibility' i.e. you can use it for other things, and can be incorporated into a rook structure, so looks better and helps keep the roof temperatures down (as long as you are using the power). I have no idea how stable the electrical grid is where you are, but it may help, with the right setup, to give you some energy independence. Keeping a few lights and a fridge, or water pump, going can be useful.

Efficiency changes with airflow, the slower the better. I really should get around to making my Mk3 model, was thinking of using silicone paper for the plates as it is cheap, thin and fairly rot proof.

It is the bit at an end of a project to put the errors right and show extra data.

In all fairness to the RPi, none of that was a surprise, the spec is well known. I admit there are things I would like on it, RTC and a few ADC/DAC pins, but it is what it is. In 2013 we could never have imagined the RPI at 30 quid.

So a week to go until the end of the year. Anyone willing to post up what worked and what didn't on their building projects. Preface it with 'Worked' or 'Not Worked' and then a brief description. You can follow it with a long rant if you like.

Welcome. I lived on a tropical island once, I liked it very much. Last time I was local to it, I managed to not use the air conditioning. Was my contribution to offsetting the flight.

Get them a very small engined car, one that can do 70MPH, just. Then load it up and send them on a trip. The physics is almost the same.

Down here, a lot of shops are using the O2 wireless hotspot for free customer internet. I have no idea ho much it costs the shops, but it is a pretty reliable service and covers a lot of Penzance. Now I know this is a town, but the concept is the same for a rural area, just stick some repeaters in cars (you can get a RPi Zero W and an extra USB WiFi adapter for 15 quid). How hard can it be.

I think the IET (the electrical people) use 2.5K.m.W-1 for soil. They tend to be conservative, so stick with that. I think there is a table in the 17th about it. And just remember that every time your plants get watered you get some extra losses. And from an experiment I did several years ago (grass growing), the plants add nothing to the thermal properties.

If the ISP/OR fail to connect a property at 10 MBs, will they get fined? If the fine is cheaper than the connection costs, they will just pay it. I still fail to see why we are using fixed lines, surely we can create a wireless mesh network that only has the hardware set up and very small electrical running costs. Why aren't the open source community working on this.

Would mean a trip to Redruth, and that is scary https://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jan/04/hidden-cornwall-beaches-poverty-domestic-violence. Still, not Camborne, which made the national press this week https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/4914205/christmas-tree-worst-cornwall-cornetto-residents/