canalsiderenovation

That's Patsy and Saffy.

Just breezeblock, single brick .....

On our bungalow we had it rendered in a very white silicone Ecorend marble white which we really like. Pic for context... We are currently in the process of having some planters built around the house with a patio. We want these rendered and we need the Ecorend marble white render to match the house but I'm wondering if the Ecorend Monocouche One Coat Render in marble white will be ok rather than the silicone render which obviously needs far more prep. Similarly, we are having a basic brick double garage built too. This is at the entrance to the drive so nowhere near the bungalow. We want the colour to match but is it worth paying for silicone render on a garage?

Yes we are exporting on Flux at the moment and getting some good returns.

@SteamyTea we just sold the boat at the weekend. Made a bit of profit but this is funding the patio areas, planters, porcelain and double garage - and hopefully we can save up enough to finally get the driveway/landscaping. We absolutely want another boat in the future but at the moment the priority is trying to finally get things finished. We are sick of looking at 20 ton of MoT, mud and mess outside.

True! We have two diesel cars, did less than 1000 miles in past 12 months, £20 tax each and diesel 129.9 (or was in last few days). V2G sounds very interesting though and maybe holding off a battery for now would make sense.

Valid point! I doubt prices will reduce to the 20p all the time anytime soon though unfortunately. It's the winter that's a killer for us really.

I doubt we will ever get electric vehicles. We live next to the cheapest petrol station in the UK and it just doesn't add up for us (we both work from home and have minimal vehicle use). We will be on Flux in summer and Cosy in winter. A battery will help in the peak times 4-7pm (cooking meals) and we can charge in the cheaper 20p times (3 hours on Flux and 6 hours on Cosy).

Seems like this could be possible. They posted recently on Facebook about it https://fb.watch/l72sG9xUAX/

No idea but our replacement Solic came in February this year. I will definitely email and ask.

Yes Solic is doing it's thing at moment and we are exporting so I can't complain! On the Solic website it has the following info: 2023 Update (pending new documentation as of May 2023) If a SOLiC is installed with batteries, the Solic 200 prioritises battery storage, when fitted with them by having an initial 10 second activation delay on seeing an export, and a 0-50 watt grid threshold to protect the energy already stored in your battery.

The Solic is going to be the death of me after we had issues before and then them honouring the warranty after the previous unit broke. Is this the same with any alternative to Solic or just their units? I'm getting a call off Segen to quote for the items (trade price) and then hopefully get them fitted separately (which may be a challenge as we need a knowledgeable sparky and the limited number of companies that deal in batteries round here I suspect won't want us to supply our own kit). For comparison I'll ask one of the renewable companies to quote too.

Slug deterrent, you can borrow our garden visitor . . . .

We are considering adding batteries to our set up to avoid the peak time rates with Octopus and to hopefully make it as cheap as it can be in winter where we can charge up the batteries. We have our ASHP (Samsung AE120), 12 X 320w panels and Growatt 3600 and our Solic diverting excess to immersion and are also exporting any extra. I'm just curious what sort of size battery others have and how easy it will be to get an electrician to retrofit and where batteries will need to be situated? I'm hoping it doesn't need drilling into places we have had decorated because that really would be grounds for divorce. In fairness I've been going on about batteries for ages and the other half has finally agreed!

TBC yet, but it will only have lavender in it so not massive. This was sort of how we are hoping they will look (not with steps, just an opening). Bricking is starting tomorrow.

Thanks for that, it's helpful. We were playing with table sizes and looking at our dining table. As we have the other patio area too I think I need to relax a little!

Argh the concrete is due today and en route, mesh all being done now 😕 but actually the width is slightly more than 3.3m at 3.6m as the porcelain will be slightly overhanging than the soil end. It's not a metre more but it's almost a chair width more. I'm hoping it will be ok. We are going to make the other patio area slightly larger than originally planned so there is additional options here - the gazebo and extra space for table chairs at the side.

There is no border anyway as there will be rendered planter walls and then lawn. Good luck with the landscaping, I'll update on a blog post as we progress. At least my dad didn't come up with any motorway barrier plans for this - if you know you know 😁

Decision made - when the builders get here we are going to ask them to extend it by 1metre width and hope this will be doable. That should give us enough space to comfortably walk around the table. I think that extra metre will make all the difference and look more proportional. In fairness this is what we had marked initially (around 4.3m plus the planter not including the planters)!

That's exactly what the wife was doing yesterday! She keeps reminding me that it isn't just the width of 3.3m but we have the length too, plus an additional patio with a path leading to it as well. That's without anything else - it's just making sure the proportions are right.

The chooks love it, and the builders gave them lots of treats too. The patio outside the sliders is partly north facing so we don't get sun until afternoon. Your size of 3.5*13 is very similar to us. I think I may speak to the builder this morning. My main concern is if it looks proportionate to the house and too small. I think I'd be happer with an extra 1 metre max. The old septic tank area is in the sun all day (it faces the side of our boat so it's a nice area to sit and watch the boats go past). At 14ft*16ft that is quite a bit of space. @crispy_wafer 5m X 10m as an additional patio? That sounds huge!

We tested it and could get around OK but that's what I was thinking too. Hmm, decisions.

Thank you. We are getting there now! We are on the Llangollen canal. If you're on Instagram our_canal_home

Arghh I need to be like that!

The other half is playing around with furniture. Yes as we have the other space which will have the gazebo and space around it I don't want it to look too heavy on the porcelain and a path will connect both areas and with the rendered planters it may be ok. I think I'm just struggling to visualise it.