Crofter

Exactly. The properties are generally empty over the winter months. Where can I find historic rates for this tariff?

Just heard about this tariff. Very interesting. According to the blurb on their website it offers low prices over the summer and higher prices over winter. For most people this would be a problem, but I'm in an unusual situation with two properties used as holiday lets. They're predominantly occupied in the summer and nearly empty all winter. Anybody on the forum using this tariff? https://octopus.energy/smart/tracker/

I'd be tempted just to sit the stove on the floor, although I believe you need to delineate an area around it. You could use a tempered glass hearth for that. Not sure how you'd get on drilling a hole through it for the air supply...

Depends what the limiting factor is- space or budget. I'm sure you could knock something up using threaded rod and a windscreen wiper motor. Not sure about the control side of it but it can't be that hard.

Welcome aboard. What sort of project do you have in mind- an extension to your existing house?

What is a high temperature heat pump? Does it use some sort of multi stage cycle? And surely any heat pump will be more efficient at lower flow temperatures. So just because it can achieve a reasonable COP at high flow temps, surely it will still make sense to use larger rads etc and run it colder?

That's a fascinating graph. I wonder if BTL landlords threw a hissy fit when they saw all the council houses being built after the war.

I knew there had to be some kind of a catch...

Interestingly, when I get a quote from Octopus straight from their website, I get offered a normal E7 tariff. But searching specifically for the Intelligent Go tariff gets me the kind of rates you're taking about.

Who is that with? I can't seem to get a tariff like that.

Yes it does. But in general your COP will be above 2 and the night rate will be half the cost of the day rate. In practice the COP will be significantly higher unless there's something seriously wrong.

But without the battery you can't really use that 15p electricity.

It's cheaper to run ASHP on peak rate than storage heaters on cheap rate.

This is what I'm wrestling with at the moment for my planned upgrades next year. E7 only makes sense if you can shift loads and store energy in the form of hot water, or in a battery or EV. If you used energy at a constant rate through the day and night then you're better off on a flat rate tariff.

@Gill those room sizes are enormous! Is it a ft²/m² mixup?? Thanks for posting the update, really useful for someone like me considering making the switch soon.

Thanks, sounds like a good fit for your usage. Our house is mostly used as a holiday let and I need something pretty simple, with a central control. I'd also really like the ability to control it myself remotely because it's not unusual for guests to turn the heating right up and then leave, and I can't always rely on the cleaner to remember to turn it down again.

Great thread, thanks. I've already got a fairly new direct UVC so I'm a bit loath to replace that. Need to price up a DIY installed PV+diverter system. The panels are crazy cheap at the moment and I've no shortage of places to put them. Would probably ground mount and use the space underneath for storage. Did you go with multi splits? I've been considering a ducted system but I might be over thinking it.

Our changeovers work out at about £30/hr. You'd think that would be pretty attractive but in a location where there are thousands of STLs and most young people move away to study, it's not at all easy to get people to do it. Admittedly our two properties are pretty quick to clean which might distort our cost per hr. A friend had to give up on his STL plans after failing to get a single person interested in doing the changeover, at any price. We've been quite lucky, and been able to persuade recently retired friends to do it, or to at least fill in. Gardening is also difficult, very few people want to do strimming through a Scottish summer with the rain and the midgies. We've had to sack one gardener already because the place looked like a jungle. I wonder if he was even showing up. One cleaner decided she'd like a day out to Inverness and the house didn't get cleaned. We were incredibly lucky that the previous guests had left it almost spotless, and the new ones just complained that the towels were damp. Absolutely mortifying for us. We don't use that cleaner any more.

Our new build letting property (see my profile pic) is across the road from our own house. For the first couple of years we managed it ourselves, although we still needed to find a cleaner because changeovers are during the day and we were both working full time. A couple of years ago we moved on to our boat and began renting out our own house too, with a property manager in place to run everything. I'm not sure how long this arrangement will be in place. It's working, but as I said we rely too much on friends, neighbours, and family, to run little errands and generally help out. We're extremely grateful to them all. I doubt you'd be able to replicate that sort of network if you stuck a pin in the map and bought a property somewhere to which you had no previous connection. Even the property manager themselves was found through a relative of a workmate. One thing that hasn't been mentioned in this thread yet is the rules on your own use of a short term let. To qualify as a Furnished Holiday Let it must be available for rent 210d of the year and actually rented out for 105d. No single stay should be over 30d. If your intention is to stay in it yourself for a good chunk of the year then you'll probably fall foul of this, unless you are just using it over the winter when it's empty anyway.

Just for context, the house is a 90m² bungalow in NW Scotland, with storage heaters, no mains gas. Currently occupied mostly in the summer, from about April to the end of October. I don't have a break down of the DHW vs space heating consumption. I'm strongly inclined to go A2A for space heating, and thinking about PV+diverter for DHW. But that would be a small DIY project, no export payments (unless Octopus extends their trial...).

Holiday letting works for us, but it's not quite the passive income that you'd hope for. We have to lean on family and friends to help out, far more than we'd like. Of course it helps having lived and worked in the area for ten years first. I still have misgivings about it due to the dire housing situation in rural areas. No wonder nobody can get cleaners or gardeners. It's simply not possible for a couple living off seasonal hospitality wages to buy a house in most of the more desirable parts of the world. I console myself by thinking that one of our properties wouldn't exist if it wasn't built specifically for holiday letting, and the other one is still our primary residence whilst we are long term travelling. So we're not denying a family a place to live, and it's temporary anyway. What really winds me up is the houses that are left empty for 50 weeks of the year. At least a self catering property is putting people in the restaurants etc. I'm sure the average tourist spends more per head than a local. But empty properties kill communities. We've not found the new licensing scheme to be too much trouble, but it varies depending on your local authority. I gather in Edinburgh the costs are very high. Councils were instructed to set reasonable fees but some of them are taking the mick. I don't think it's as arduous as getting set up for long term lets, and frankly it was a bit ridiculous that there was no regulation whatsoever of the short term sector.

Are these any good? I've only recently become aware of them. E.g. https://www.heatershop.co.uk/dimplex-edl200uk?fbclid=IwAR0zOyc200ZN0QG_0MYF4e8JZesi9--DAKdylEWCmsUKxY2p5NMOhEGOsTQ @Nickfromwales ?

Unfortunately, not really. I can dig out the meter readings and see what the split is between DHW+heating, and everything else.

I'm leaning towards a ducted system rather than multi split. Probably without any room-by-room adjustment after the initial installation. So hopefully control will be pretty simple.

If I go ahead with an A2A+UVC system, perhaps with PV+diverter, any thoughts on: a) flat rate vs E7? b) any special tariffs that might be better? c) trying to run the A2A overnight rather than on low 24/7?