canalsiderenovation

Sorry what do you mean alternate them? Me and the wife have different interpretations of what we think you mean. A couple of years ago we planted lots of bluebell bulbs that were in the way of the extension we moved and we have bluebells now all on the embankment which look lovely. I don't think claiming vacant possession now is as easy as it was previously but it's useless land and no one can access it aside from the farmer who has fenced it off because he wouldn't want animals up there and can't grow maize up there.

We did have a buzzard a few weeks ago but it managed to electrocute itself so the hens are safe for now.

They actually haven't destroyed anything plant wise! It's the dust baths and that they keep chucking soil out of the borders onto the lawn. I'm not too bothered at the moment as the garden still needs some TLC and of course the free range eggs make it all worthwhile. They have learned to tap on the sliding doors to beg for food right when I'm on a work Skype call too, they are funny though.

We have plenty it seems grow everywhere, if you're in Shropshire you're welcome to it. @daiking we moved lots of bluebells a couple of years ago. They have just come back after not appearing last year so may take a couple of years. I had a lot of shrubs off my parents for my recent 'special' lockdown birthday. My wife got me two chickens. Gardening with two chickens does not work well, they are like two dogs and follow me everywhere.....

Our bungalow is adjacent to an old railway embankment, track long gone in the 50's. There is no danger of the embankment falling down, it's full of ivy, plants and lots of shrubs we relocated and is a gradual incline and we own about half way up and then to the top and down the other side no one quite knows, solicitors searches, land registry etc came up blank. Beyond that just farmers fields. The owners before had some sleepers just at the bottom which are rotting now and we would like to put in some sort of 'retaining' wall, although really it's not retaining as such as parts of it have had nothing in for years and it's fine, just a mess and we have around 90 metres as it is basically the whole length of the property! I initially thought my dad may have gone mad when he suggested motorway barriers but it could be a very cost effective method! The only picture I could find to resemble what my dad had in his head was something like this albeit not that high. Using something like these which come in varying lengths.... Granted they are certainly not the most attractive thing but painting it perhaps could make them look a bit better and add in some trailing plants we need to move. It certainly could be far cheaper than any other option. Pic taken of part of the embankment to the right early.on in the build (some trees in front of path were removed). It's not a built wall rather just bits of concrete the previous owners placed on it and in other parts there are sleepers. That is the highest point as some ground was dug out.

I've had a follow up email with clarification on the issue. What I'm annoyed about is I had various email conversations with them before moving over and included pictures of my meter asking if it was suitable followed up by at least 3 telephone conversations. I've just looked at your account and you have an Elster SMETS1 meter - there's a known issue we're working on w with these meters specifically when on our smart tariffs which causes apparent double-counting. The meter itself is ok but the issue is how the data reaches us via the DCC (government central system). We're working on that but to help I'm forwarding this to a colleague who's dealing with this issue.

I think there are days when it's very low but it wouldn't work for us. Our Tarrif is this one.

I'm not exactly tech savvy either but if it wasn't for the app it would have been unlikely I'd of noticed the issue.

Check it, probably unlikely unless you're on a Go or Go Faster Tarrif but it's worth double checking. If I hadn't no one would have picked up on it.

Octopus seem to have suspended the app as I can only see now Sunday but am continuing to monitor the meter every morning. For the past two days our total comsumption has been less than 30 units a day total, mainly all heat pump as with our weather are still struggling to get over 0 degrees once the sun sets but we have had some good sunny days so have plenty of hot water and have made good use of the solar in the day.

To be honest basing it off my calculations the amount we have paid so far won't be too far off what we owe and I'd rather not cancel it and end up with a big bill. They haven't yet applied the money sitting in my account from two direct debit payments to any bill because they can't bill me not knowing the amount! So for anyone with Octopus, keep your eye on your meter...

Latest update from Octopus - there is a problem (really?) They are hoping the issue will be resolved by the end of May at the latest ? and they have identified the issue and now need to fix it. They said they have now identified this happening to people exclusively on the Go and Go Faster tarrifs. They did say once they are clear on exactly the usage and split, they will come back to me but they should be able to clearly dentify this by reviewing meter data (I'm not convinced)! Until I have concrete information from them on what they have my actual use as and the split I can't do anything aside from keep taking meter readings daily. As yet my direct debit hasn't actually paid any bill, it's just sitting in my account in credit as they can't work out my bill currently and they have 40+ days so far to go through plus the issue is still not sorted so they can't actually clearly identify how much I owe. Once it has I'll be on at them for some form of compensation. The time and energy (energy get it ?) I have put into all this recording, monitoring our electric use and buying additional monitoring equipment has taken up an almighty amount of time whilst my other half has thought I was going completely mad unplugging appliances, turning off heating and complaining when our daily electricity use went over 100 units!

I'm waiting for a resolution from Octopus and am now bombarding them daily with photos of the meter and a breakdown of what the app is reporting during the same period. Having been taking the meter reading each 24 hour period for the past few days versus the half hour readings in the app I'm pretty confident the app is reporting just over double our use, e.g. between 9:45am Saturday and 9am Sunday we used 41 units of electricity (of which the heat pump used 36). The app shows 82 which is double and the times they have our use still isn't accurate.

They were good about it and I've followed up with an email asking for a formal complaint to be raised. In a way the fact I've been so obsessive about our energy use due to the heat pump saga made me realize something wasn't right because I knew the heat pump use had been pretty stable so we couldn't have used the amount they are saying and certainly not during the times they are saying. God only knows how they are going to work out the split of units now and in the meantime they need to sort out what the actual issue is/technical fault.

Nope. We had a smart meter when we moved in so didn't need any different meter with Octopus but we have never had the screen monitoring thing. I think the previous owner must have taken it or got rid of it.

Checked - that's correct. Indeed. What I'm concerned about is how they are working out my use between 8:30pm and 01:30am when we are only paying 5.5p because if they are basing it on the smart meter readings they are completely inaccurate. The woman I spoke to says if the smart meter readings aren't accurate they have no way of knowing the split so this leaves us in a bit of a situation in that out of our 1500ish units we have used in 41 days no-one can say how many are at 5.5p!

Smart meter! Here's just an example.

I found interesting that in between turning the heating off last night at 10pm and checking temperatures this morning at 10am when it was 3 degrees, the lowest thermostat readings were 19 degrees which were rooms which formed part of the existing bungalow and have no EWI yet (the extension was warmer but this has far better insulation in walls). I didn't think this was too bad with 12 hours of no heating when we have no EWI and no render.

? Because of the ongoing saga with the heating and electric use I know exactly what our usage is but then when I saw the app I thought great, half our meter readings easier to monitor usage.... One particular day they had our total energy use for a 24 hour period as 82 units. Our HP use during the same 24 hour period was only 26 units so they are saying we used over 50 units of 'other' use during this time period. This is at a day when we had a really good solar use and charged everything up, did washing etc and we also have hot water heated with the ASHP when the 830pm Octopus cheap rates come on but this has been minimal as the solar has been doing particularly well in March.

Sorry I posted it in the wrong place the first time. Now I'm sure you're all sick of my saga with energy use but it now gets even more complicated. You will recall I was monitoring my energy use for part of January, all of February and part of March. Once I'd managed to get the heat pump settings a bit more consistent we were using between 20-40 units of heat pump use a day and no more than 8-10 units of other use. We moved to Octopus and I've been getting myself completely tied up with their app and our half hour smart use data because it's being recording some absolutely horrific figures - at it's lowest around 45 units of electricity a day and at its highest 123 units a day which I absolutely couldn't get my head around for a 24 hour period with major use between 2-5am when we ended up programming the heating off during those period and setting programmes for each room (thanks @Ultima357) I've been checking out heat pump meter reading and that was only between 17-39 units a day (even with the recent cold snap) and I've been monitoring our other use. Finally I've gone to taking good old fashioned meter readings from the box and checking every day. Luckily I had a photo of a meter reading the day we moved 12271 and a photo this morning gives 13811 so the past 41 days totals 1540 units which is pretty much in line with what I'd expect given we have had some cold days but also good sunny days when we have had minimal other electricity use as we have been using solar. The app for Octopus, adding up every days units gives a total of 3052 for 41 days - over double!!! I've just rung them to be told the smart meter readings are normally accurate (really)! Explained I'd got pictures of the electricity meter pretty much every day and as I'd been monitoring our electric use for 3 months I know the app can't be right. All went very quiet when I asked them to tell me what the meter reading was they have when they realised the app cannot be accurate at all given the opening meter reading and what they have now. They are looking into it..... I'm not going mad. I'm not going mad. I'm not going mad.

Now I'm sure you're all sick of my saga with energy use but it now gets even more complicated. You will recall I was monitoring my energy use for part of January, all of February and part of March. Once I'd managed to get the heat pump settings a bit more consistent we were using between 20-40 units of heat pump use a day and no more than 8-10 units of other use. We moved to Octopus and I've been getting myself completely tied up with their app and our half hour smart use data because it's being recording some absolutely horrific figures - at it's lowest around 45 units of electricity a day and at its highest 123 units a day which I absolutely couldn't get my head around for a 24 hour period with major use between 2-5am when we ended up programming the heating off during those period and setting programmes for each room (thanks @Ultima357) I've been checking out heat pump meter reading and that was only between 17-39 units a day (even with the recent cold snap) and I've been monitoring our other use. Finally I've gone to taking good old fashioned meter readings from the box and checking every day. Luckily I had a photo of a meter reading the day we moved 12271 and a photo this morning gives 13811 so the past 41 days totals 1540 units which is pretty much in line with what I'd expect given we have had some cold days but also good sunny days when we have had minimal other electricity use as we have been using solar. The app for Octopus, adding up every days units gives a total of 3052 for 41 days - over double!!! I've just rung them to be told the smart meter readings are normally accurate (really)! Explained I'd got pictures of the electricity meter pretty much every day and as I'd been monitoring our electric use for 3 months I know the app can't be right. All went very quiet when I asked them to tell me what the meter reading was they have when they realised the app cannot be accurate at all given the opening meter reading and what they have now. They are looking into it..... I'm not going mad. I'm not going mad. I'm not going mad.

I need to check our info and confirm exactly which spec of insulation it is. I now know it needs to be the grey/graphite version of EPS. We do have cavity wall insulation on the existing as when they took the old windows out it was inside like white fluffy stuff and we found some paperwork when we bought the house confirming cavity wall insulation. The window sills and eaves/overhand definitely won't be big enough for anything over 50mm unfortunately, we have checked. Very frustrating and an oversight really I should have picked up on. Our soffits etc have gone in but I'll ask the builder when I see him tomorrow. Below DPC is happening the same time. I thought the below DPC should be else than the main EWI so 30mm?

50mm EWI

Hi I'd posted a thread on the rendering forum but wondered if someone had any views on Jablite for EWI. Grateful for any comments on this thread and particularly around the issue of our DPC being higher in some parts and possible options such as plinth insulation allowing us to render over DPC (I think)!

We should hopefully getting our EWI and render in the next couple of weeks thank the bl00dy heating gods because we are hoping this will improve the bills! You'll know from the original layout of our bungalow that part of the bungalow is stepped inside (to the bedroom/dressing room) as it is higher. This means the DPC is at a different level. This is going to look really odd as we have our DPC at different levels. The builder was speaking to the different reps about the render and if there was any solution because it's going to look a bit messy with the render coming lower on some parts and higher on others. It's days like today when I wish we would have knocked the whole thing down...... Pic below is our bedroom and dressing room and the bungalow is higher here as we step up two steps to access this part of the bungalow. This pic below probably demonstrates it better and you can see how it steps up. The scaffolding is in front of the living room/snug and the wall window is the middle hall. Ignore the garden walls and any paving etc... And then this is close to our front door where we have the existing part on the left which is pretty much where it is stepped inside and then our extension. We had picked Krend pure white but I've just had an email from the builder with the spec for the EWl and render and it's something called Ecorend and Jablite. Is Ecorend similar to Krend? And Jablite - is this a suitable EWI? Feeling slightly overwhelmed again! EcoRend_Spec.pdf Jablite Spec.pdf