Roger440

If you can get an EV as a company car tax dodge, great. For the rest of us it makes no economic sense.Thats before you get to the practical difficulties. I tried to make it stack up for my wifes next car. It doesnt, not close.

Maybe. Im as cynical as anyone, but at £6k, there will be a lot of people that cant and wont pay. At which point it will become a government problem. They are simply not going to allow significant numbers of people to be cut off, so effectively the suppliers will be supplying energy free of charge. That cant end well and government will be forced to intervene. Of course, they could try being proactive, but i think we all know they will sit on their hands until its a full blown crisis.

Im hoping i called it right last week. Managed to squeeze 880 lites in.

Just filled my oil tank. Its a crazy world when heating with oil is substantially cheaper than heating with gas. One wonders at what point its cheaper to fire up my generator and connect to a set of batteries, than buying from the grid? Might be there already for non domestic?

Good post. I remeber Jeremy saying that running your average log burner was like having 300 diesel cars outside your house ticking over. On that data, that doesnt look to be that far wrong as far as PM2.5 is concerned. And the goverment wants gas boilers gone..........................................

The most critical factor to its thermal performance is, "is it dry?". A wet wall is a disaster. And lots of them are. Usually as a result of inappropiate materials.

The problem is, every situation is different. Some will get away with solutions that simply dont work on another house. There just so many vairables. On our current house i worked on a worst case scenario. Could i have got away with less? Could i have left the concrete floor in? Maybe. But you cant and wont know until its too late. While the place is stripped, taking up the old floor and installing an insulated lime floor wasnt that big a leap, though not cheap either. Overkill? Maybe. But ive given it the best possible chane of eradicating the damp issues.

Thats the route i toook with out current house, and if the next one comes off, will likely do the same again. You did, however, miss off air tightness. On anything this old, it will be an air leakage catastrophe!

Obviously you have an issue with water from above, which really isnt that difficult to solve. My render on the gable was the same. The easy fix was lead flashing at the top of the render. But are the walls damp at floor level? If they are, thats not going to get better if you insulate externally. If they are completely dry, then maybe.

Ahh yes, why did i not think of that. Obvious name is obvious! I dont remember the bar maid.

Lots of ideas. But no intelligent life forms to enact it. Jesus, 29bn for 6 months!!!!!

Thanks. Understand. There was a pub in watermead, the name of which i forget. For a while it was the place to go. And i did Mostly because the warranty lads were dossed in the horse & jockey over the road. Happy days.

It was. Economically illiterate. If they want to do something useful, first x number of Kwh at a low rate, climbing the more you use. So the biggest users subsidise the lowest. Simple. No tax payer cash involved. Well, may be not simple, but best idea ive heard.

IF they manage it. Yes. And ignoring the pollution aspect of course, which is hardly insignificant. Which is one reason there wont be any wood burning stove in my house. But very much an edge case though. Not too many people have enough woodland to do that. Nor the will and energy to actually manage it. Thats a lot of work, not a task to be undertaken lightly. Might seem a good plan in your forties, not so much in your sixties. So wont get done. And therefore wont be sustainable. There are no CO2 free solutions. All you can do is minimize. I think this thread may have drifted off topic

Id say burning wood IS bad too. I fail to see much good in doing so.

Agreed. Though it can no doubt contribute. Im never suggested that there was a solution. Just getting fed up with stuff being decribed as "sustainable" when it patently isnt. Just accept the fact our existence uses resources and causes pollution.

Solar? If you ignore the manufacturing element.

It is true. I know, you know, and everyone else knows, its just greenwashing. There nothing "sustainable" about the whole carry on. Not least because there no guarantee that the replacement tree wont just be removed early in its life.

Im asking?

With regard insulating solid walls, yes, several recent threads. Tread carefullly. Your proposed option further up isnt what i would do. There comes a point where you accept some losses through the walls, concentrate elsewhere, especially air tightness, which will be bad, and see how you can cover those energy losses at the lowest cost. It is, as you say, a minefield. The biggest issue with the various options, is, it will be a long time before you know there is a problem. Ive just stripped and replastered mine with a lime hemp base layer first. (and probably about to do it all again in another house) Partly because its a little flood prone, but also because i know it will be OK. Sure, its a thermal disaster, but its 2 walls (to outside), insulated below and above. Though, now the walls are dry, it feels so much "nicer" than before the work.

Thats a rather healthy consumption! If im understanding this right and using steamys numbers, with oil that would be circa 450 litres!! Or has my maths failed me again?

You have indeed. Given the costs in that link being a decade old, and the costy of the kits posted by the OP, it probably not much to be gained doing it entirely yourself. No wood used in them either, just plastic,glass and aluminimum. So should be good long term. However, id like to see how it compares to a diy flat panel in terms of output. I like it though. Now what to use it for.

Cost? V woodfibre that is.

No. I used seciltek adhere. Alledgedly a bit breathable. Usual lime suspects sell it. Just done my floor with it with limstone tiles on limecrete floor.

Mechanically, no, it hasnt changed much. Electronically, its a huge leap. Which has left a lot of them behind. And, to be completely honest, me to a certain extent. I ran an automotive workshop for 13 years. Even in that space of time, the developments were significant. Your traditional automotive technician are mostly just guessing at problems. Usually at the customers expense. You say its releatively easy with diagnostics. Well, it would be if you have a grasp of how the car works. But they invariably dont. A really easy example. Car wont start and run. Diagnostic says crank sensor. So they change the sensor. Oddly, that doesnt fix it. So then they say, it must be the ECU. If allowed, they change that too. Of course, it was just the wiring to the sensor. But they simply cant grasp that the ecu is looking for a signal. If the loop isnt completed it falls over. Because the diagnostic says sensor, they change it. Zero comprehension. I would say more than 75% of sensor faults, were not the sensors. MAF sensor faults. I reckon 99% are air leaks. Hole in the pipe. If i had a pound for every sensor changed in the UK in a year i would be a millionaire. Of course, there are people that do understand it. But you wont find them working in a cold draughty shed covered in oil and dirt. They will have a "proper" job. I did manage to employ someone who was good at this, but his mechanical skills were hopeless. Problem was, i just didnt, nor ever would have, enough of that type work to justify such a person. In reality, most of the garages locally, when faced with a problem they didnt understand would take it to the one bloke locally who did. The guy is a legend, and has no doubt forgotton more than ill ever know. The mass of equipment he has is something else too! But he is one guy. He cant do everything. The lack of any actual solution to dealing with it is one of the reasons we closed the business in the end. There just isnt the people out there that understand. Accepted that im in the south east, and that makes the situation worse. But thats where a lot of people live. I see ASHP and related as much the same. You have traditional plumbers, who all of a sudden now need to understand a whole new area/technology. There will be smart ones who can and want to learn, and do. They will be very succesful. But they will be a small percentage. Thats not going to be enough to install these systems at any meaningful scale. But they will still be installed. Badly. By people who dont understand. I dont suggest i have the answers. Just an observation.