Roger440

Generator is the obvious answer Ive got a diesel 5 Kva unit. You can get an auto switch over panel too, so kicks in automatically in the event of loss of power. Not sure what the load of an ASHP is, but i guess it would run most. Whatever else i do, i wouldnt get rid of my oil boiler, even if its not the primary heating source. That needs a tiny amount of power to keep it functioning. Im not "prepping", but im certainly not planning on being cold when the blackouts come. Anyone that all electric is just more vunerable.

ie, none of our actions will make any difference to what happens to the climate. Whats coming is coming. All you would do is impoverish people, and achieve little else other than line the pockets of the energy companies and/or government.

If we were using that oil ourselves, and not importing it, it wouldnt be so bad, but we wont see any of it. All sold on the open market Contrary to the total lies about it from the PM

Deliberately putting people into financial hardship or poverty is never the right thing to do. And for what? Something that will ultimately make no tangible difference to anything.

Cars are really quite simple. Remove the barriers and people will buy them. Currently, for many, there are significant barriers. Primary being cost. One wonders why the barriers are not being removed. Instead we do bonkers things like allow company directors tax advantages for buying huge overpowered, overwight, high performance cars. Whilst the average man on the street gets nothing. At all. Leaving EV's well out of reach. Ive looked at replacing the wifes ageing corsa with something newer. Budget circa £5k. Needs to do a 200 mile trip for the once/twice a week commute. There is nothing, not even close. If i spend 4 times that, then maybe. Preaching and lecturing about moving to EV's will achieve nothing as long as the massive cost disparity exsists. Theres a reason autotrader is awash with lused uxury / high performance EV's.

Can certainly be done. Not much frame visible though. 30mm all round. Amazing how much bulkier windows have become over the years.

What i meant, and i think Dave did too, is there is no sensibly priced solutions. Ive spent hours researching how to insulate the place. Ive pretty much got a plan on what to do. I know how to do and think ive mitigated the risks associated with doing so. It just doesnt come close to making sense. financially. Bear in mind that if i did as suggested, i would have to do it without BC approval, as if i informed them, the cost and complexity would spiral out of control. If i paid someone else to do the work, and do it with BC sign off, we would be into 6 figures. So, if you want an answer to your question, consider something other than an all or nothing approach. If all the EPC g houses moved to an E, that would be a significant saving. But the "system" doesnt allow it unless you go "rogue" and simply do it anyway. As ive said before, i believe we should be preparing for the effects of climate change. You wont stop it, certainly not by the piddling measures we as a nation are taking. Do not confuse that with denial.

Can i add some insulation round the frame. Yes. I could. Not sure how you envisage that would look?

I think your maths might be a touch off. 10 x 20 = 200, not 2000 Have i properly calculated? No. i havent. However, they are already UPVC, apart from front door. And look something like 18mm. Looking at the frames, which are very slender, i cant see any realistic way of putting something deeper in there. So, sensibly, yes, i should replce the blown units. Low cost, and gets me back to how they should be. But thats going to have almost no appreciable effect on the overall cost. My costings were done based on replacing with new units. Because thats the only way to make any worthwhile gains. Which will be into 5 figures for the whole house.

Ive done the easy wins. Roof already well insulated, too well as it happens as they have stuffed it down to the eaves blocking air flow. I need to resolve that, but that will actually make it worse! Lower part of roof off to resolve. Plugged all the obvious air leaks, with one big one to do, but that requires removal of part of the roof, so needs to wait until summer. Whilst i can bugger about on an adhoc basis, thats not going to be as good. That said, even if i did it in one hit, despite the eye watering cost, it still wouldnt meet current regs. So my energy requirement whilst substantially reduced will still be significant. Which is why payback is essentially impossible. Fortunately, the house is warm and cosy, better than i could have hoped for, so any program of insulation is unlikely to change things much from a comfort point of view, though UFH would be a useful gain as i do miss that. But my £30-40K doesnt include digging up the floor, just either overlay, or cuting grooves in the exsisting floor. As ProDave observes, nobody has come up with a solution for older houses. I doubt anyone will either. My double glazing is early eighties, some with blown units. Even replacing these makes no economic sense. Theres a lot of glazing for a small house. It will never payback. If i leave things as they are, im doing, roughly, 2000 lites of oil a year. Best case, i halve that. So now a 1000 litres. In round numbers its £1 a litre. So my investment of £30-40K at best nets me a £1000 a year saving on energy costs. Doesnt take a rocket scientist to see that it doesnt make any sense at any level. There are millions of houses in the same position. Id have loved to have built a house. But the planning system simply doesnt permit what i want, so no option but to buy an exsisting house. Though, realistically, i could probably never have funded such a venture.

See previous post. Im not talking new build. Wish i was, because id have achieved building my own house. Sadly that dream has long since been abandoned and evaporated. Hats of to those, like yoursef that made it happen.

I posted before, but to properly insulate my house, even doing it myself, is circa £30-40K. That just makes no economic sense. I (likely) wont live long enough (20 years) to break even with the reduced fuel costs. Plus i need to have that to spend, up front, in one hit. New build is an entirely different proposition.

Do you not think your post is somewhat hypocritical? You have decided the reasons that "other" people (who you know almost nothing about, or their circumstances) are not spending their hard earned on your favoured technologies, whilst at the same time not having adopted any of them yourself and in the case of the car, justifying to (yourself?) why you dont need to. As ive posted before, financially, insulation, ASHP or electric car, simply dont stack up finanicially. If you are fortunate enough that you dont need to consider if something makes economic sense and can press on anyway, then thats excellent for you. But dont presume that everyone else is in the same position. Nor, that even if it does stack up, that they can afford the very significant up front costs that come with all of those things i mention.

It IS my power if i generate it. To do so requires considerable investment. By me. I have no desire to assist octopus, a company who have, behind closed doors and publically, lobbied and sought to distort the energy market to increase their sales and hence profits by increasing costs to customers who may not use them. Morally, im afraid that doesnt sit well with me. If you are OK with that, good for you. Im happy to help society. But thats not who is being helped. The beneficiaries will be the power companies and government. Both corrupt. (have they changed how pricing including renewables is dealt with? No? Thats right. Got to keep the profits up.) With the government being the biggest threat to my way of life, livelihood and well being. Far more so than any risks that climate change may represent. If they had the citizens best interests at heart, that would be different, but they dont.

The government should be ensuring the infrastructure is capable of the demands placed upon it. Not me. Not sure why i should be covering (and funding) their incompetence? Theres not a chance i will allow the government, and by extension an electricity company, to decide they are taking my power. Because they simply cannot be trusted not to change the rules of the game after you have spent the money. I shall focus on being as self sufficent as i can, whilst remaing connected to the grid.

A question ive asked myself several times. In principle it seems sound. But seems to fall over due to the cost of everything else aside from the car. I am still kicking myself for not getting one of the Maxus T90 EV pickups. In December, to get rid, they dumped them for either £20k or £150 a month, no deposit. It dropped further to a best deal of £51 a month. Over 2 years. Yes, they are shockingly bad vehicles, and pointless too, but they do come with an 80kWh battery pack. I believe someone may have bought one just for the battery pack! When those 2 year leases run out, the whole lot will get dumped on the second hand market in a very short 3 month window (1000 cars approx). They may well, at that stage make excellent battery fodder!

Sorting out coal fired power stations is the job of government, not individuals. If blackouts become a thing, then i will be having a battery etc. But i sure wont be sharing it with the grid. If ive got to spend that money to keep the lights on, ill be keepiing my lights on thanks.

In which case, they have a great product, as, by and large, away from build hub and self build, piss poor workmanship is standard. Im guessing they are going to be millionaires!

Am i missing something obvious. Why would i want to supply the grid from my car. My house , yes, can see that benefit, but the grid?

I guess its encouraging they know there is a big problem to fix. Not so good that the "solution" will mean a shortage. Of course, when that happens, i think we can safely assume the fix will be more self certification. Which will take us back to the problem of any old crap being signed off!

You make it sound so easy! Be handy if i could do it. I blame my maths teachers.

Have you considered EPS beads inbetween plasterboard and wall thus avoiding mosot of the disruption. Accepting that there may be condensation risk and/or depending on the state of the walls, damp transfer. Im guessing no DPC in the walls? As an aside, i do rather like that................

Maybe didn't explain myself well. When it's cold, the return temp is lower because more heat is dumped into the house. At least that's what I've found with an IR thermometer on the return pipe. So when it's milder, I find I need to turn down the boiler temp if I want the return temp low enough. Ie, manual weather comp. Not overly practical of course

And the condensing temp on oil boiler is lower than gas ones too. When it's proper cold, it's ok, but in milder weather, cycling is unavoidable. So significant periods it's not condensing.

It's a five year old condensing boiler so shouldn't be too bad. I too could massively improve the house. Just makes no economic sense. I've sorted out all but one of the significant air leaks already. To sort the last one, I need to take the corner of the roof off!