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Crofter

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Crofter last won the day on April 1 2019

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  1. A lot of Nordic houses use quite traditional designs with generous eaves overhangs and steep roof pitches. All of which will protect the wooden cladding and will minimise any water ingress from roof damage. In Scotland we're using similar materials but the fashion is to do away with overhangs completely, and have flatter roof pitches. I've seen some pretty poor quality larch cladding. It's all in the details. Don't bring it down so low that it gets backsplash. Use full boards at openings, don't just cut a bit out of the board and expose end grain. It means that you need to be more careful with your board spacing but it's worth it.
  2. I agree, we have too many subsections in general. The forum structure was largely inherited from its predecessor. (Sorry for the thread drift)
  3. We have a fairly small turbine (80kw, 46m tip height) 220m from the house. It's a pretty agricultural piece of equipment. In light airs it slowly turns, about 60rpm, and makes a loud 'clunk' on each revolution. In stronger winds you can't hear it at all. It's a bit annoying since it's clearly generating no useful power in those light winds, and a simple software change would probably be enough to eliminate the noise altogether.
  4. Typically (see what I did there) the tip height is the highest point that the finished turbine can reach, so tower height plus radius of rotors.
  5. If you build without PP,it's possible that you could be forced to demolish it. I don't think you've got any option other than to pause the project while you get PP. Probably not the news you want to hear.
  6. Wow has this really been five years!? In the end I took off all the surrounds inside and measured up directly. The local joiner who I asked to check my measurements never showed up so I just had to take the plunge. Everything fitted perfectly. Getting the old windows out was by far the hardest part of the job. A recip saw would have been a huge help. I did try using a multi tool but the depth of cut just isn't there and you only get a few nails done with each blade, at about a fiver a go. The most fun part was turning the kitchen window in to French doors. Very satisfying. A few years prior I wouldn't have dreamt of doing all this work myself but it's amazing what you can do when you just roll up your sleeves and get on with it.
  7. Well not to rub it in but currently in the British Virgin Islands. Pretty idyllic until you get to a shop and it's US$12 for a loaf of bread. Fortunately we stocked up on flour in one of the French islands which are less extortionate. Living on the boat for a few years has really shown me how you can live with the minimum of resources. We literally live off sunshine and rainwater. I have a sail for my dinghy and most of the time don't need to use the outboard. So we can go weeks at a time without using any fossil fuels at all. Our main engine is diesel but we don't move that often, and try to only do longer trips on days when we can do the bulk of the journey under sail. Of course, there is some outsourcing going on- we use buses and launderettes, and almost all of the food here is imported.
  8. Moody 39 from the late 70s. So a very basic old tub of a thing. With a little lateral thinking it wasn't too hard to find space for 1200w of solar (200w of that charges the old lead acid system which I kept in place as a backup, the main lithium system uses the remaining 1kw)
  9. I used to think people were daft to pay the Victron premium. But their prices have come down recently and now that I've got a few bits of Victron gear I completely understand why it's the most popular choice.
  10. Yup, that's home, but I'm away travelling on the boat for a few years just now.
  11. I've actually had two different ones. The first one was an Epever 3kw which died following when it was switched off whilst running. Should have survived that but sometimes you get unlucky. I replaced it with a Victron 3kva (2.4kw) which was double the price but I didn't want to have a cheap one let me down again.
  12. I don't think it's hugely relevant to a house building forum since it's all 12v off grid stuff. But a bit of info about it: 1kw of PV charging 6.6kwh of 12v LiFePO4 batteries via MPPT charge controllers. 3kva inverter to supply the AC loads. This powers all of my domestic systems including fridge, freezer, induction hob, air fryer, electric mini oven, lights, etc etc. I have a gas cooker which is my backup, but I very rarely need that- maybe one day a month on average. The battery cost about £800, the inverter was about £700. MPPTs about £200. Panels and other bits were dirt cheap- eBay, second hand, etc. The secret is that I'm not in the UK- PV works very well in sunny countries, despite what the newspapers tell you 😂
  13. Can we tone down the language on here a bit please, totally unnecessary and it's at risk of getting personal.
  14. Ah I missed the 200 mile requirement. You'll have to wait a few more years to get that at £5k. As I understand it, modern EVs are seeing very little battery degradation, although much depends on how they're been treated. Don't they give an indication of the battery health? That's something I've seen on adverts, but maybe it's to be taken with a pinch of salt. If I come across as a techno-optimist it's probably because for the past three years I've been living off grid on a boat, powered by PV and lithium. The whole project was about £2k to put together. It's infuriating to see other people not even bothering to explore what this technology can do, and they continue to run generators. Even if you don't give a crap about the environment, or noise, the cost of fuel and servicing alone quickly makes PV+storage the cheapest option. Returning to the original question of using a car as a battery: the prices I see quoted for domestic batteries are very high. I built mine for about £120/kWh. Is anybody using DIY batteries on domestic projects? Are there any hurdles to doing this?
  15. Somebody mentioned not being able to buy an EV for £5k. That's not really true, there are Zoes and Leafs in that price range. With the former you need to make sure you're not locked in to a battery lease. And on this first generation of EV you can't expect much range. The main thing preventing EVs appearing at that price point is that they're not old enough yet. If you look at the £10-15k range there are thousands of pretty decent EVs. I'm contemplating an MG5 or a Niro myself. The other point about whether any of this is worth doing, your attitude probably depends on what media you consume. I was quite impressed by some interviews that Hannah Ritchie did, and I'm looking forward to reading her book, which she describes as the product of her journey from climate pessimist to cautious optimist. https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/453652/not-the-end-of-the-world-by-ritchie-hannah/9781784745004
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