SteamyTea

Mother said it would make me go blind!

@JSHarris Just borrow a couple of number plates and double side then to your existing number plates. You know the original registration for your car, use that one. I got told off for walking into the local tip, after I had actually walked in. They refused to allow me to put one small bag of rubbish in the skip, tossers.

Does the iPad have Numbers on it, if so, that will be perfectly good enough.

You can get LibreOffice for the iPad, and it is free. Most of us work with Excel and there may be the odd incompatibilities, but generally for basic stuff there is not a problem. If you have a PC, it may be easier to do all this calculations and stuff on that.

Yes the * is multiply Sometimes a . is used, as is an x, and sometimes there is nothing. U-Value is a measure of power, with the unit W. W means watts and is what is called a derived unit. It is derived from the basic SI units of mass, distance and time. This may sound a bit odd when you think of electricity or solar power, but it really does all make sense. The other derived unit is the joule, J, and is the unit for energy. The old name for energy was heat, and is descried as the ability to do work, the rate at which work is done is called power, which is watt, W. So you can see that there is a relationship between energy and power, with the only difference being time, which is measured in seconds, s. We sometimes use hours (h), 1 hour is 3600 seconds. You may also often see 8760h which is 1 year. So U-Value is W.m-2.K-1 All that means is power divided by metres squared multiples by temperature difference. It may also be written as W / (m2 . K). So if you have a wall, or window, or anything that allows energy to pass though it because of a temperature difference between one side and another, you need to know 3 things initially. The U-Value of the element you are looking to calculate, say a wall with a U-Value of 0.15 W.m-2.K-1 (°C and K are interchangeable) , the surface area on the cold side, say 7.5 m2 and the temperature difference between the two, say 12°C. Multiply them all together (called the product) gives you the power loss in W (watts) 0.15 [W.m-2.K-1] x 7.5 [ m2] x 12 [°C] = 13.5 W Now say you have those exact conditions for 8 hours, you can work out the energy loss in watt hours. This is useful as we buy our energy in kWh, or 1000 Wh. So 13.5 [W] x 8 [h] = 108 Wh, which is 0.108 kWh. If you pay 3p per kWh for gas, then the losses will cost you: 0.108 [kWh] x 0.03 [£] = £0.00324 (or about 0.33p). Now what you have to actually do is work out all your areas and the associated U-Values, get some local weather data, and work out the losses for a whole year. This may sound daunting, but it is what spreadsheets are made for. Hope that helps and feel free to ask about any bit you do not understand (and I may have made an error anyway). Here is a power loss calculator I knocked up a while back. https://steamytea.wixsite.com/u-valuecalculator

Can I have subtitles please

Welcome Albert. Devon is a large county, which part of it are you in.

I am away for a few days, but have taken all the advice on board. Looks like it will be a job for next Sunday now. I have had a word with my not unattractive, single, blonde, European neighbour about using her shower if it all goes tits-up. That could cost me

I made a large drip tray for our spa baths to drip into. I am surprised that it is not done more often, almost as a standard. But a pipe can leak anywhere, but usually and a joint or junction I would think. A simple way to detect a very small leak would be useful, though it may not show where the problem actually is.

Part of the reason is that they now know the causes better. In the past you just got labelled as a 'wheezy child', now, because of better understanding, treatments and GP incentives, it is treatable. Once you put a label on something, you can treat it for life, the big pharmaceutical companies love that. Asthma is something that you treat the symptoms of, not the causes, rather hard to recommend 'stop breathing' as the cure. The other reason may well be poor air quality, in the past, when air quality was a lot worse, people just died. We also have more pets, I think it is something like 50% of households have a cat or dog. But may have just dreamt that. The jury is out on our clean lifestyle causing problems. There is some research about some sort of stomach worm not being with us so much these days. We also tend to know a lot more people as we get older.

After 30 years being in place, it may well be a bit solid. If I manage to get it out, how many times should I wrap the PTFE tape around the thread. And are all the threads the same size 2 1/4 BSP?

Is WD good enough, I have some of that to hand. Or I have a trip to Truro. Just noticed they have a branch in Penzance

Thanks @Onoff, that seems to answer most of it

I have a little spare room, what I stuffed full of insulation. I could also go for a small one as I don't need as much water as it can supply. Do they all have the holes in the same place?

I thought copper would be OK. May have to get a totaly new cylinder when I come to get the thing out. They seem to be costly now circa £400.

I am finally going to have to do the element replacement next week. I have a Super Seven cylinder (about 30 years old) and need to change at least the bottom immersion element. The cylinder is approximately 18" (0.46m) wide and 60" (1.52m) tall. When I try and measure it it is a little wider because of the pitifully small amount of insulation, about an inch all around it. Now having a quick look on the interweb, I can get 11" or 14" elements and they can be made from copper, copper and incoloy, incoloy only and seemingly titanium. How as the last element lasted almost 30 years, and I am in a very soft water area (not always good as things dissolve in water, eventually), what should I go for and where is a good online store to get them from. So length and material, and where from. Cheers.

I think Mike's problem is for tiny, tiny leaks, ones that would not show up on a normal detector (I had one given to me by the water company, not sure what happened to it). I think they used sound, but where known to be unreliable and gave too many false positives.

Or a ten year old basic Ford C-Max, The Scenic had it too, and they are over 20 years old. Is there some kind of tape that could be wrapped around areas of high risk. Something with two parallel conductors and some dry salt. Connect to a meter and when it gets damp, circuit is made and a buzzer goes off. Pipe condensation may be a problem, but pipes should be lagged enough to stop that anyway.

Most cars have some sort of rain sensor that can stop and start the wiper (mine seems to stop them when I pull up at traffic lights). I have no idea where the sensor is, so must be fairly small.

Except that the allergy is caused by the faeces of the mites that live on the animals. Not sure about latex, but notice that emulsion paint is irritating my skin now.

Best way to deal with a cat.

There is more to MCS than just registering a system. If your idea was viable, it would have been done as the industry was riddled with crooks. Modules are so cheap compared to a decade ago, it is just cheaper to add more. There is still the DNO limits to adhere to if grid connected.

I think it probably is, as long as you get a competitive quote for the installation. There are two rates, the 'Deemed Usage' and the 'Generation Rate'. It i only the generation rate that has been cut. A lot of the costs in fitting PV are nothing to do with the FiT rate or the MCS system i.e. cost of scaffolding, labour rates, structural reports etc. But there are companies that just put in high quotes and hope they sell a few. We all know a few people that equate price with quality.

SAP stuff should be a separate document. It may not have been done yet. You may get the water usage, and temperature for your washing machines from the hand books, my Bosch does. They often have the energy usage too. A 'shower' can be long and hot, short and cool, cool and long or long and short, only you know that. Why measuring it is useful. Mass of Water = Density (or volume) of Water x Flow Rate x Time Energy to Heat Water = Specific Heat Capacity (SHC) x Mass x Temperature Rise. To use a cooking analogy (and I do a lot of cooking), a small pan of water boils a lot quicker than a large one on the same ring. In the real world, temperature rise and energy input is not linear. You loose more energy to the surrounding air the hotter something is. It is why you may read about storing hot water at a lower temperature. My DHW system 'lost' more energy over a day that I actually needed to bath in. So I insulated it more, and it used less. Just like a thick jumper keeps you warm when it is cold and a windproof jacket helps when it is very windy, the same is true of houses.

Not going to bother to read the article (some of us down here read, and read the Guardian). But does he justify the "studying for 7 years" at all? There are several ways to interpret that. Not that I would ever say a word against Architects, without at least one expletive