jack

Don't attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by ignorance. They may well believe what they said!

36°C outside 25.5°C upstairs (interestingly, this is very slightly cooler than it was yesterday) Not sure about downstairs, as I don't have a working thermometer here (just brought the upstairs one downstairs and am letting it stabilise). It's a lot cooler than upstairs - I guess it's around 21-22°C, but feels cooler because I have my bare feet on the concrete floor. I'd be curious to know the floor temperature - must get my 1-wire system working again! When the kids come in from being out in warm weather, they walk in the front door and lie on the concrete in the hall to cool down.

The relationship with the FiT rings a bell.

You're probably right. I wonder whether that's changed at some point or it's just my memory failing!

Agreed. I seem to recall that the limit was measured based on the panel capacity rather than the inverter output, but I might be misremembering, or the rules might have changed.

Exactly this. Also, if you aren't being metered (and most aren't), you're paid on nominal usage anyway. You're paid the same no matter what your actual usage.

Love it! The angles make all the difference imo.

Blimmin' flip

No. I had grand plans to do so, particularly around the TV room and between bathrooms. But in the end, the plasterboarding suddenly happened sooner than I'd planned for, so I didn't end up using any additional sound-proofing techniques (other than double-boarding all internal walls). I'm generally not that happy with the inter-room soundproofing. It's something I'd definitely pay more attention to if I were doing it all again.

Dave, I might be misremembering or confusing the situation with someone else, but did you have an issue with the bottom edge of the render somewhere on your build?

Not a moment too soon to have installed an aircon unit. 35°C here tomorrow!

Couldn't agree more with this. When it's cold you can turn up the heating and put on a jumper. When it's hot, other than a fan, there's little you can do to cool down short of some sort of active cooling. For me, it's exacerbated by working from home. I know from experience that my productivity drops precipitously when it gets hot.

Doesn't say so at the link, but it could well be. I looked into using that but didn't in the end. I'm glad, because the rest of the detailing by the plasterboard contractor was so crap that the green stuff wouldn't have made a dB of difference to the sound-proofing within the house.

I say this often enough that people probably think I'm getting a kickback from manufacturers, but shower waster water heat recovery units offer one of the cheapest ways of bumping up SAP points. As others have said though, it's concerning that you're short of the minimum points if you're building with any thought for the future. Having experienced underfloor cooling over the last couple of years, I personally would include cooling of some sort (whether ducted air or underfloor cooling) as a minimum for a new house.

I think that's right. From memory, they seemed hugely expensive for what they are.

Yes, I regularly think what a shame this is.

I run my supply temp at 15C. I get a breath of condensation on the manifold - never any droplets. I came in having been out for a bit this afternoon and it was like bloody heaven walking in the front door. Can't recommend it highly enough.

5.9kW for us as well. Our panel angles knock the top end off a bit, but we do get a good spread of generation across the day. I also need to spend a morning scrubbing the panels. I was up there last week and there's some minor algal growth on some of them that won't be helping matters.

I have the DHP481 too. Apart from being a little heavy if you have to do a lot drilling, or drilling at awkward angles, it's an absolute beast.

I've had and periodically abused a Makita DTD129Z brushless for about five years (possibly a precursor to the brushless model you mention above, but it's so hard to tell with Makita's bewildering array of overlapping products). It's probably my favourite tool.

My parents bought a house with a built in Miele. Despite drinking a reasonable amount of coffee, they ended up getting rid of it due to the amount of cleaning and maintenance required.

I just turn ours on by hitting the "mode" button on the standard controller. Normally at this time of the year it just does hot water, but by cycling through modes I put it into hot water/cooling mode during hot weather. I leave it on during the daylight hours so it mostly runs off PV, and turn it off in the evening. Downstairs in our house is very pleasant at the moment. Probably about 20 deg C. Upstairs is getting a little uncomfortable - I had to get up and open a window at 3 o'clock this morning because it was too warm even with no sheet over me (my wife was sleeping soundly under a duvet!) It's time to start paying more attention to purge cooling in the early evening and mornings again.

If I could drink just three a day I'd be a happy man. No such luck...

Exactly the same as me. One coffee early in the day. Definitely nothing past lunchtime or I'll be staring at the ceiling for an hour when I go to bed.