G and J

Can't find the post quickly but @saveasteading suggested being on site as much as possible when people are there, even if you are just tidying, making tea etc, (but doing something) goes a very long way to building the relationship, as well as seeing what's happening. Difficult if you are not able to do that, even for a short while each day, as once it's happened and your seeing it after the event, it gives the resulting discussion more potential for getting fraught.

Dunno but the amount the cost of slate was reduced by was equivalent to quite a happy proportion of the cost of the solar system.

You can buy a one way valve that you can pop in and it stops rats. Amazon sells a good quality Rosshield one. And yes, they can swim.

I knew there’d be a downside to insulation lol

Boils my brain to try and get a feel for it, but I think there may be a 5D graph possible showing payback period vs panel capacity, orientation, inverter capacity and battery capacity. For us and I assume many, maxing the panels on one face of the roof was a no brainer as it saved slate (I’m not a fan of surface mount panels). From that our installer used a sort of rule of thumb/wet finger analysis to give us an inverter/battery pair he’d used loads of times on our sort of size if installation and which was well priced. So the 5D graph and all the AI advanced modelling wasn’t needed. So no deep thinking needed. Simples.

And I thought I needed to get out more lol

Oh. Shouldn’t I do that then?

Yes. Ish. I’d not call it overcapacity, even though we can’t export quite all we generate, even after we've refilled the battery. The numbers made it an easy win.

+1. I might even push the boat out a bit and add an isolator. It’s only money.

I naively assumed (isn’t that just so dangerous) that anyone exporting would have bi-directional doberries. The dude who fitted our solar PV/inverter/battery was most precise about what we needed where so I was all ready to go through it with our sparky who before I opened my mouth told me exactly the same thing, It made me think that everyone else knew all that and I was the only dunce lol.

Fab.

I think it’s first and foremost the responsibility of the self builder (in our cases at least) to design stuff that looks right in its place. Some peeps seem to feel it’s an exercise in getting as much over on the planners/neighbours as possible, which I think is a shame. I know it’s an ‘only rain at night’ type of notion but trying one’s best to build in harmony has got to be the best starting point. But I recognise that we need planners to limit the unharmonious.

I’d have assumed even a couple of amps pushed the wrong way through old and/or one way RCBOs/RCD would have given them a problem. Nicely inclusive though. I can imagine the real payback being in change of attitude from apathy/impotence to yes, we can do a bit.

No sure if you were referring to our comment, but just for completeness (in case helpful to others) we are bound by B4, so the relevant walls have cement board over our timber frame and fire treated cladding, in addition to the appropriate cavity closures and intumescent strip.

Presumably they come with a remote clamp for the meter box?