Crofter

So just to conclude this, I finally made a decision. Went with the DHP490 drill and DTD153 impact, both a decent upgrade from the base models. Plus the 186 recip saw. Only added a single 3Ah battery, because once my tools are all reunited I'll have plenty of batteries. Powertoolmate won out in overall cost, there were only a few quid in it. If I'd wanted to, I could have split the order between two or three different places to get the absolute lowest prices, but I'd have lost out any savings in additional delivery charges. Looking forward to my new toys

I believe so, but it would get pretty frustrating waiting on them.

It's possible you ended up with the 'SD' charger, which looks similar, but has no fan.

This is the one I'm looking at, same as I already have. Definitely has a fan. https://cnspowertools.co.uk/makita-dc18rc-18v-lxt-li-ion-charger.html

Yup. I can get the Makita fast charger for as little as £14 if I shop around. The double charger is nearly £100!

Ok just about to click the button, but before I do, does anybody have a discount code they could share?

I would start by looking at all the background heat you expect to be generating in there- two humans, a fridge, some cooking. Then do a basic heat loss calculation based on notional insulation values and the surface area of the hut. This will be dependent on outside temperature- do you want to use this all year round, or summer only? Just to give you a data point, my little place needs no heating for about nine months of the year. The fridge, hot water tank, and a bit of solar gain seem to be enough. I've got u values of between 0.1 and 0.15, with the windows at about 1.0.

I've been using a corded electric chainsaw for my log pile, and I *thought* I was keeping the chain sharp enough. Recently switched to a brand new chain and what a difference... knife through butter. It only cost about £8 as well. Worth every penny!

Fair enough. I wish I had a note of what my first pair were, as they were perfectly good.

Haha, I'd already looked at that one! I'll probably just buy new though. These things just don't depreciate at all- that one is about 75% of the new price!

Out of all of these tools, the recip saw is one that will likely see limited use. I'm about to replace some windows, and I thought the recip would be good to slice through the screws. Last time I was doing this I tried using a multi tool, but the blades are insanely expensive and I was averaging about two nails per blade. And I didn't really have the depth of cut required anyway. For very occasional use, maybe I should be considering a Fakita recip? The best price I can get on the real one is £83.

That's a very good deal, well spotted. My only slight reservation is that both the driver and drill are a bit on the weedy side. The kit includes more battery than I strictly need. I'll not regret that in the long run, just I wonder if I should be looking for a slightly more beefy impact driver (that ones is 140nM max).

I'm very wary of knock off batteries. But I have only owned two. The first was supposed to be 3Ah but it's so light that I don't think it's even 1Ah. It also behaves differently to my other, genuine, batteries: it will grind down slower and slower and eventually stop. The others will start to dip and then cut off abruptly. This means that the genuine ones have some sort of circuitry inside them, presumably a BMS, which prevents deep discharge. The cheap one is likely just a pack of cells. My worry is that, without any sort of BMS, the cheap battery is unsafe and could fail to detect any problems. I never leave it charging unattended. The other knock off battery I have is the one that started smoking after a dead short, as described earlier. I'm an absolute cheapskate but I draw the line at fake batteries now.

Yes I've just realised that. Could have made a bit of a mistake there! The 18RC fast charger is about £17 in some places, worth the extra if it saves me buying an extra battery.

PassivHaus is all about energy/m², rather than total energy. Which I think is wrong and drives up house sizes. We don't measure cars in mpg per ton of vehicle. Also, it's very difficult to meet PH standard in a small build because the volume: surface area ratio favours larger buildings. Another thing counting against a PH Shepherd's Hut is the exposed floor. You've got a very large surface area and a small volume inside it. I came up against all of this on my own build, which is a 5*10m house on legs.

Ok a genuine charger is only £8 at ITS, no need to risk a fake one!

6Ah fake battery, one of the better known ones but the name escapes me just now. I always struggled a bit to press the clips on the sides hard enough when attaching it to the charger or a tool. One day I was putting it in the charger and pressed really firmly on the side clips. There was a loud 'click' like something breaking. A few moments later smoke started pouring out of the battery. I whipped it back out of the charger but it carried on smoking. I could see that the smoke was coming from behind one of the clips, and when I gave it a poke the plastic clip fell away, followed by a stainless steel spring. The smoking stopped, so I let the battery cool down so that I could take a closer look. It turned out that the steel spring was only isolated from the ends of the cells by a thin (1-2mm) layer of foam. I had pressed hard enough that the metal had cut through the foam and created a dead short. To my mind that's a blatant design defect. If I'd walked away and left it on the charger, it could have been very bad. I only buy genuine batteries now.

So giving this a bit more thought, I reckon I need: - a light/compact drill driver - an impact driver - a recip saw - a medium sized battery I'm very tempted to get a knock off charger to save some money. Do the genuine batteries have some sort of protection built in that would prevent damage from a faulty charger? I already own a genuine charger which is located elsewhere, so I just need a fake one to get me through a couple of jobs. Likewise with batteries, no point getting one I can't take with me on the plane, so 3Ah will probably do. I don't like fake batteries though, I had a right fright with a Ryobi pattern one a few years ago.

I'm already locked in to the Makita system, although I do have a corded SDS cheap thing as well for those odd occasions when I need it. I agree on the different sized batteries- sometimes you just want a little 1Ah for tiny little jobs where you want to keep the tool as light as possible, e.g. working overhead. And other times you want a 6Ah for the grinder. Horses for courses!

Thanks I think my original ones may have been from FFX, it rings a bell.

My Makita collection started with a brushless LXT drill+driver pair about twelve years ago. They were absolutely brilliant and I built an entire house with them and much more besides. Sadly the impact driver vanished one day (still a mystery). And now the drill is getting very wobbly, and is located a few thousand miles away from where I need it. So I'm going to treat myself to a new pair. I don't need hammer action. I can't remember the exact model numbers of what I've got but I know they were both brushless and 18v LXT. I'll need a set with a charger as the original one is still with the drill, and I'll need a battery. It might make sense to put this together from separate items. Any tips on where to start looking?

@Gus Potter none of what you have written explains how the UK can become self sufficient in oil and gas, which is the point of this thread.

Why do you think this is a given? It's easily established that rooftop PV can have a payback time of 5yrs or less, and a lifespan of 25yrs or more. These systems are being bought by private individuals out of their own pocket in order to enjoy lower bills. Nobody would be doing this if it didn't make economic sense. I don't understand why switching to systems that produce essentially free energy, after installation costs are paid off, is a bad thing. And yes it's going to be necessary to run gas power stations to fill the gaps, but is there something fundamentally different about the cost of burning gas intermittently vs burning it as the primary means of generating electricity?

I'd presume that in 50yrs time our oil and gas would be worth more than it is now. Nice little nest egg to be sitting on whilst everybody else burns their reserves.

My air to air system doesn't look like that. There's a normal outdoor unit like any other ASHP. Then under the floor there's the indoor unit, completely out of sight. Insulated 200mm ducts go from this too each room (smaller rooms split down to 150mm). The warm air comes out of wall grilles. One in the kitchen plinth, the others are just above skirting level. Each grille has adjustable vanes and a damper to restrict the flow. I've throttled down the kitchen one a little but otherwise haven't touched these. The house is 93m², the ASHP is 10kw, which I thought might be slightly oversized but it's what the installer suggested. In use, we tend to set it to anywhere between 18-20⁰C. The thermostat is in the hallway in the middle of the house. You can close doors on individual rooms if you want them hotter. So usually we leave bedroom doors open and that keeps those rooms comfortably cool, while closing the living room door lets the temperature go up to a degree or two more in the. We could adjust the dampers to achieve the same thing but opening and closing doors is easier! We do light the woodburner in the evenings so when I say we're spending £1-£2 a day, it's not quite the whole story. I reckon we maybe save £1 a day lighting the stove. Which does make me question the wisdom of spending so much time and effort chopping logs 😂 Edit to add: total installed cost was about £4200 including every little jubilee clip and clamp. Most of that was the supply and fit of the indoor and outdoor units. I ran all the ducting myself. A simple but time consuming job that the installer wasn't interested in taking on himself. I likely saved a lot of money by doing that myself. And just to reiterate, zero grant funding towards any of this.