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I assume your question relates to what I said about cooker hood? That's what the general advice is here. Use a recirculating cooker hood and use the MVHR on boost to swap the air in the room. I think this is fine for normal cooking smells. Some people have suggested not so great if you fry though. But my thought was more about the heat output of long cooking sessions. In a well insulated home there's nowhere for that to go and the MHVR doesn't shift enough air to do the job AFAIK. Opening is fine though it's less controlled. An externally vented cooker hood with a designed make up air solution would seem the better solution (assuming appropriate air tight shutters are used to seal them up when not in use). Only ideas for me at this point. Not got to the stage of actually planning something. I suspect it's a relatively low cost thing to do but if not then I'd likely stick with the recirc + MVHR + window.

If you are struggling to find a way to sensibly fix this, others here have previously suggested 'Magic Man' type services. At least on the interior might be a good option. Never used them myself so others might be able to say more.

If you cancelled all long term incentives currently offered, you would most likely find future production builds still being mostly renewable. Especially if land based wind turbines start being permitted again. The offshore stuff is expensive, but building renewables on land is cheaper than anything else (and can be done at much different scales too, encouraging a wider mix of businesses). They did that years ago before the cost of renewables nose dived. They were too early and got burned unfortunately. I would be curious where they would be now had they persisted. Unfortunately, western country recent history is littered with companies trying to make 'green' products, deciding they couldn't do it at the right price and giving up and then China coming along saying 'that was a good idea, here's how you do it and make money' (and hint, it's not about labour costs, the solar panel/battery companies are very low staffed, it's all machines).

Suggests the temp was set wrong on the place. With a home you get to choose the setpoint. With a well designed and insulated house (taking account of solar gains as well as heat loss) you should be able to find a temperature that just works and doesn't really require fiddling. Exceptions being if different family members have very different comfort temperatures (but that's at least as much of a pain if you have a more dynamic system, if not worse). Nothing stopping you opening or closing windows as you desire. The heating would naturally switch off if it went about the setpoint. With the windows open the internal temp would relatively quickly return to normal and a low/slow system with lots of concrete likely helps speed up the return to 'normal' temperature. Though on cooking, for my own future project I'm definitely leaning towards a directly vented solution (if I can get comfortable with air tight closable vents when not in use) despite what a lot of the advice for recirculating systems in an airtight house here. Reason being is if I am doing much cooking I'm likely batch cooking and that means heat output for hours that will likely overwhelm a well insulated airtight house. So replacing hot cooking air with direct outside air is a way of controlling heat gain more than anything else. Saw some Americans building custom cooker hood shrouds that directly push the make up air into the cooking area to then be sucked back out again from the stove. With low and slow you are going to smooth out a lot of temperature variation that we experience in normal houses. Sharp changes caused by opening windows/cooking will still happen but the reversion to mean will be a lot stronger in a house built for low/slow. The decision for a fast response system is in theory the safer choice, it's more like what we are all used to living with and moving away from a low/slow system once it's in is difficult/expensive. But going based on feedback from people who have low/slow, it is the way to go for many people if you can get comfortable with the idea. I want to find a setpoint that I can just set and forget about (bedrooms being on a separate floor expected to be cooler/or directly zoned).

I expected a lot of damage caused by the unthinking slashing of contracts and staff but I'm really surprised at how incredibly badly it's going. It's the Brexit 'had enough of experts' on sterioids and we are only seeing a fraction of the messes being created that will take a very long amount of time to clean up.

I'm not sure what you mean by they run at a loss, but then they make money from investing the premium. Isn't that the whole business? Insurance hasn't been purely pooling risk for ages its a risk pooling + investment business. You don't have one without the other. I also didn't think all claims went to the underwriters. The underwriters only stepping in if the primary business lacked funds to pay claims?

Sorry, maybe I'm reading this wrong. You mean they refused renewal for you? Yeh, I've never chosen the cheapest for things like this. Good company reasonably priced is what I go for. With Aviva buying out all the highstreet names (Barclays, M+S, Churchill, Direct Line), what will be left that's reasonably priced but also pays claims? We'll end up with sharp operators or high priced options.

Does seem to. My case is a bit different as it's a change in company. When they've taken over their quotes have been consistently in the £200 range. I'm currently paying Churchil £80. (Contents only as I'm leasehold). Insurance products a complex with lots of different line items. It's fairly easy for insurance companies to change their standard cover every year, so those who want to renew last years cover are then renewing a 'non-standard' cover and the price of that cover can be different to that offered to new customers. I think @Redbeard is a good example of that.

The annoying game of luring in customers who are then too lazy to move. I'm one of those customers, if the bump was 20% I may well swallow it rather than faff around finding another company but when the quotes come in 2x that motivates me to move. Feels like there is an opportunity for a company to come out and market on the basis 'we aren't the cheapest but you'll always get the our best price and we don't play games with you', but I'm not aware of anyone who does that. If Aviva is swallowing up all the competition, soon enough there won't be enough competing quotes to make moving make sense.

This is the way. With most vehicle service businesses still tuned for ICE vehicles, repair options for EVs are limited (and partially artificially restricted by manufacturers anyway) so lots of EVs get written off when fairly new with minimal miles. Pick a model that the DIY EV community has really dug into and you have a great starter kit for a similar price to a chunky crate motor. Having said that, this is still the preserve of very technical people with electronic/computer skills and even then the newer rules about battery safety means that packaging the battery might still require independent certification (which I saw might cost something like £5k).

This is not strictly a self build thing but I've just received a letter about my house insurance telling me Aviva have taken over my insurer. So far so routine, except this is the 3rd time in 3 or 4 years where I've got a letter saying Aviva is taking over my insurer. So that's three separate insurers that have now been absorbed by Aviva. So that's Barclays, M+S Bank, Churchill, all gone. Apparently, Churchill were part of Direct Line and it's Aviva buying Direct Line that caused the latest letter. Is competition disappearing from the home insurance market? Every time Aviva have taken over the renewal quote was at least double what I was paying before.

I thought there were new rules that mandated they did take card payments without an app. Maybe some haven't been updated to do that yet but AFAIK it's just a matter of time.

Seems unreasonable to me if that left you without a working shower. Don't think you can get the BUS grant with an electric shower so would need to be removed before installation complete. Would be reasonable to say 'can't install any additional electrical load until one of the showers is removed' but definitely excessive to require both removed before starting IMV.

You saying you'd never fill that battery suggested that what you did may not have accounted for using the overnight cheap rate to charge. Should always be possible to fully charge overnight. Always worth checking the AI. Ok sorry, I thought it was a bigger array than that. In that case, prob not worth worrying about going over the G.98 limit. Just set those panels up to generate the maximum you can during winter/shoulder seasons. As far as mounting the panels go, do you have planning/visual considerations? You can get really cheap if you don't have to worry about that. (Scaffold poles set in concrete holes, unistrut, etc)

Unlikely maybe but it's easy to do so no harm in trying. (though sensible not to base decisions on access to more) In winter you fill the battery overnight with cheap rate electricity and run your workshop off it during the day. In summer, you export the max you are allowed and charge the battery with the rest. Then, when the sun goes down, you keep exporting until the battery has enough room to take the next days solar input. These two steps combined minimise your bill in winter and maximise you export (earnings) in summer. See above. Do the calcs based on what you are doing right now. Given you have the panels and inverter for free you should be able to make it work fairly comfortably. What size solar array and inverter do you have? Is the inverter approved for export G.98 and G.99/G.100? (It would be a big hitch if not, likely requiring a new inverter)