Crofter

It's not that hard to hit the studs when going through 50mm of PIR. I had to go through 100mm to hit my rafters and that was a bit of a pain, but it was manageable. Wool is cheap and breathable but you'll end up with a thick wall build-up, and a lot of the money you've saved on insulation will go in to extra timber.

Today's XKCD seems relevant.

I designed my place with 50mm PIR on the inside, which allowed me to use 145mm studs whilst eliminating thermal bridging. You want your wall build-up to be progressively more moisture permeable as you move outwards. So mine goes VCL, PIR, mineral wool, breather membrane.

Here you go! https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pB2tPqTm3Vs

Yes will do. It glides nicely. The only thing I would say about it is that with the weight of 3G it has a fair bit of momentum so if you put too much oomph in to it it'll reach its stop with a bit of a bang. Oh and thanks for all your advice and help!

It's a smart slide neo door, and I got one window too, not sure of the name there. Fabricated in Poland, I had to wait a couple of months for them, which was over Christmas and New year.

Just to update and conclude this, I went with Aluplast in the end. Just finished the installation. Early days but I'm very happy. The new units are quite slimline, I was worried about switching from a timber finish to uPVC but against the white walls they're basically invisible. The top hung window is a massive improvement on the old side hung one. No saggy hinges. And the simple sliding door is a joy to use. Just effortless. No signs of any air leakage, even when it's blowing 50mph outside. I'm in a very exposed spot so this was a concern. The old units had started to leak air quite badly. It's harder to shut the front door now because the house is airtight again! U Values are claimed to be better than the old aluclad units- substantially better in the case of the door, 0.74 vs 0.96. I paid a bit extra to get the glazing delivered separately, which was money well spent as it meant that installation was much easier. All in all, very happy with the choice. Not the cheapest, but I've got about as good a thermal spec as I could get anywhere without going to truly silly money and krypton filled units. And it's come in just over half the price of the cheapest aluclad.

Nobody says you have to put them on a balcony. I think it's just a term that's used to show that you could do this if you live in a flat. How often do you actually see people using their balconies anyway?

How does it work in Germany? Do they have to notify anybody?

This is a good example of why we need a bit of nuance in the debate. You can quite truthfully say that China are building a large number of new coal power stations every year. And if it suits your agenda, that's the end of the sentence. The bigger picture is that these plants are in part replacing older, less efficient ones, and are acting as backup to an increasingly renewables dependent grid. So that China's emissions are actually falling. Good luck finding that level of analysis in the Daily Mail or GB News.

They are installing a lot of coal power stations, yet their emissions are falling. The power stations don't do much harm if you're not actually running them.

It's not just social media. We have people in positions of authority coming out with obviously and easily proven lies. It's no wonder the general public have a poor grasp of facts around these contentious issues. There is no price to pay for lying. There's is no longer even any shame if you are called out on it. And it's only going to get worse as AI fakes proliferate.

I can't find any other sources for this, no official govt press release anyway. If anybody hears more details on this, please post them here.

Not sure if this has been discussed already but sounds interesting: https://www.euronews.com/2026/03/27/european-country-vows-to-give-homeowners-free-electricity-instead-of-switching-off-wind-tu In short: UK government is going to trial discounted or free electricity on windy days, in certain areas. Mr Octopus says it's a good start but operating as a trial doesn't give the long term confidence needed to get people to switch to EVs and ASHP. Labour had previously ruled out zonal pricing so I'm not sure why they've changed their minds. But, given I live right next to a large wind farm, it sounds good to me!

Right up there with Brass Eye and the rise in crimes we know nothing about

Now, how can I configure this so that my immersion heater comes on when I've got my plug-in solar generating?

Presumably you won't get export for this because it won't be MCS approved?

Same ballpark as my figures, in fact a bit worse, as your turbine costs more and you're having to put in some of the labour. From memory, I would have been getting 32p on FiT. It seems that small scale wind hasn't come down much in price, making the difference with PV even more pronounced than it was.

We live in one of the windier parts of the country. When we moved here in 2013 the FiT for wind was still running, but being reduced for new schemes every April. We hurriedly investigated getting a turbine installed before the next reduction came in to force. We were quoted £32k to have a 5kw unit installed. It would have generated about £2k a year, and we would have saved on our own electricity use on top of that. Obviously back then there were no batteries or EVs so you either used it as it was generated, or you just exported it without extra payment. You were paid for generating it anyway. The numbers didn't really stack up for us. We had other things to spend that sort of money on. We also felt that as newcomers to the village, it might not go down that well too immediately stick up a turbine. I can laugh about that last point now. A couple of years later, our neighbour put up a 50kw unit.

Anywhere that it's actually going to work well, that shouldn't be a big problem.

I've always just drilled holes in the back on the panel frame and used u-bolts to attach panels to frames. For automatic tilting, I imagine you could set something up using a length of threaded rod and a windscreen wiper motor. Would be a fun project!

My new Aluplast sliding door came with a box full of these. No instructions and the pdf I've found online doesn't really help. I was just planning on screwing through the frame prior to fitting the glazed units, but thought I'd check in case I was missing out by not using these.

We're windier, and we have lots of scope for pumped hydro storage.

https://www.euronews.com/2026/03/11/spains-renewables-revolution-likely-to-keep-energy-bills-low-even-as-gas-prices-soar Spain are seeing the benefits of using invested in renewables. I presume they have a more sensible energy pricing system than we do. The idea that we "can't afford net zero" is almost laughably wrong.

I don't feel like I've cut any corners. There's genuinely nothing I would do differently even if I had a bigger budget. (Actually there is- I'm never tiling an entire room in metro tiles again!)