jack

Or this! https://www.amazon.co.uk/External-blinds-cleaner-Sunblind-LR-180-GTR/dp/B07SSB4MWV

I have them. They probably ought to be cleaned regularly, but I haven't gotten around to it in the 7.5 years since they were installed. We went with a shade of grey that we thought might hide the dust and it largely works! I was planning to do it - or, better yet, get my kids onto it - this summer. I was going to wait until an overcast day, hose them down, then use a pressurised pump sprayer to spray on some detergent (not sure what type yet) and leave it for a while before hosing it off. We have one of those car-washing brush attachments for the hose that I might try on the more visible ones (e.g., near the front door) once the detergent's done its work.

For context, our house tends towards being relatively cool in winter given its PassivHaus levels of airtightness and insulation. A lot of this is larger areas of glazing, especially to the north. We certainly seem to use a bit more energy for heating than some with similar sized PassivHaus-type houses. We went away for Christmas and most of January a few years back. The house was empty for a month. I turned off the heating, hot water, and every appliance other than the fridge and freezer. When we got back, the house was around 14 °C. If you add back in incidental heat from people, pets, cooking, hot water generation and storage, showering, appliances, downstairs heating (if you need it to maintain 19 °C), and anything else, there's no way you'll maintain anything like even 12 °C upstairs without active cooling even in winter. Where did you get the 10-12 °C idea? As others have said, that's a worryingly low temperature range in terms of house (and hence occupant) health. More to the point though, 10 °C is bloody cold. My wife complains if it's less than about 18 °C, and even I don't like getting out of bed in the morning if it's much below that sort of temperature.

I've been following this in the forum because we've been planning to get a Zappi for a while. I believe the Zappi is about to be added to the compatibility list for intelligent octopus. I believe they're in final testing. That's only for the 6 hours of cheap charging though. I don't know what that means for charging the car using solar.

Have you tried the Myenergi forum? I've found it pretty good.

You can run whatever you need. I can't remember the current ratings of the different extensions, but I vaguely recall that some are physical relays and some are solid state. I use some for zero volt switching and others for mains switching. You can also use low them to switch low voltage DC and use that to drive a chunky relay if needed.

Beat me to it! My small ASHP needed 300 mm or maybe even 350 mm space behind it.

I don't know what this is supposed to mean. If it's a dig at Craig, look back through his recent posts - lots of helpful content, no mention of his company. Incidentally, you're one of the "there are others" I was trying to think of when I wrote my reply.

Welcome, and thanks for being upfront about this. Several members manage to successfully walk the line between commercial presence and unacceptable business promotion. @craig comes to mind, but there are others.

I'll check tonight and get back to you.

How odd. My missus was exactly the same. I had firm opinions on nearly every detail of the house (admittedly mainly what I didn't want rather than what I wanted!), but aesthetically I couldn't have cared less whether there was a bar there or not. The screen does wobble a bit if you catch it on the way out of the shower. Not ideal, but none of the three shower screens set up like this has broken yet.

I think you're being too hard on yourself. Sounds like the seller lied about stuff being in stock, then provided utterly shite service, then effectively tried to steal your money when you cancelled. Glad you got the money back.

Hi Jake. I'm not sure whether this thread is monitored much by the people who've posted in it. Best thing you can do is to send a private message to one of the people who mentioned the Facebook and WhatsApp groups earlier in the thread and ask them how to join. If you're on a PC, you can just hover over their icon and a popup will give you the option to send a message. Alternatively, click on their icon and the option will be on the next page. Good luck.

Makes sense a longer job price would be lower than a one-off day, but are plumbers really still £30 a day less than painters?

Seems very expensive to me. Nearly three grand just for first fix ductwork labour? Without any previous experience, I installed all of my ducting (£289 m2 house) over an easy couple of days with occasional help from my wife. Even at £300 a day (which is a lot given it's a low-skill job), what are they doing for 10 human-days? And what "second fix" works? Surely that's just fitting inlets and outlets? Again, how much time could that realistically take?

No way I can get a plumber onsite for a day for £210 around my way. Are they really only £30 a day more than a painter?

Can't help you with the on-tape stuff, but I don't suppose the PWM rate of the driver is adjustable via the Eldoled programming interface?

Admittedly I don't have any heating upstairs, but this is very much not my experience in winter. It's always 2-3 degrees cooler upstairs than down in winter. We're just at the time of year where that changes. In summer it's a lot warmer upstairs, and maybe a central extract upstairs would help when the MVHR is in summer bypass mode.

I'm very late to this but we have an insulated concrete raft: up to 300 mm EPS, ~100 mm concrete slab, then ~70 mm polished concrete screed (no insulation between structural slab and screed). I work from home and almost never wear shoes inside, so I spend a lot of time walking around on it in socks. Yes, it feels hard underfoot, but to be honest I don't notice it. As for temperatures, I had dinner at a friend's place mid-winter many years ago. It was a refurb with building regs insulation levels throughout. Top level was engineered oak flooring. I don't know what flow temperature they were using, but I found it extremely uncomfortable underfoot. My feet were sweating and I found it extremely distracting. TBF, my wife didn't notice the temperature. Our floor temp slowly wobbles around 19.5-21.5 degrees during winter, based on a 25-28 degree (weather conpensation dependent) flow temp. It doesn't feel warm underfoot, but it's perfectly comfortable to walk around in socks.

1. I was responding to you about EVs in general, not Teslas, since that's what you were referring to: 2. Assuming the 1% number mentioned by Tesla is reasonable for other manufacturers, my battery should lose up to 0.38 kWh per 24 hours. That's less than 2 miles, which is exactly in line with my comment: 3. The numbers given by Tesla in the link you provided suggest a 3 kWh/day standing consumption is far too high. Assuming a 54 kWh battery (which is what Jeremy's would have been, I think), 1% is 0.54 kWh, which is about a sixth of 3 kWh. In summary, parasitic losses are a thing, but are nothing like the thing you implied.

I've never measured it, but 3 kWh would be over 12 miles at our usual consumption rate and it definitely doesn't lose anything like that when it's sat in the driveway.

I did say "at worst". I'm basing that part of my comment on experiences several BuildHub members have shared over the years.

The main issue with committees is that a lot of people sitting on them are at best ignorant of planning law, and at worst know the law but intentionally subvert it to suit their personal agendas. They needn't be a bad thing, it's more that the introduce unpredictability.

My recollection is that the neighbour consultation date is nominal, and that they still have to take into account any (relevant!) objections received in time for consideration before a decision is made. Of possible interest is the question of bringing the application into committee. Our rules say an application is brought into committee if it receives a certain number (5, I think) objections. It may be that the consultation deadline is a factor in whether the number of objections triggers a committee review. Makes sense that would be the case.

Fears were rising a few months ago about the elevated sea temperatures this year's anticipated El Niño might bring. Interesting/worrying how extreme it's looking already.