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It is an Ebico zero tariff. As said previously, it's about the only one left.

Unfortunately not. It's just more sunny here than elsewhere. ? There do seem a lot of installations now you mention it. But it all seems normal to me having lived here for ages so I've stopped noticing. I am led to believe Planning have put in various conditions in the past that were easy to achieve by fitting a lot of solar, but this is unconfirmed rumour. I think you are correct. The waste plant is on Forest Road now. I don't blame you! The IOW is fairly clear of C19 right now, but I can see this changing now it's holiday season. We usually end up having to be very careful because of coeliac concerns, so it's often easier to just accept self catering because food stress or illness on holiday is not why you're on holiday. We will be staying put this year so I can work on the house a little more than I planned. A change is as good as a rest as they say. (But I am sure whoever said that didn't spend the time up a roof ladder!)

I don't think you are far off on your to do list. I found that I needed to sign up for a tariff and this caused the meter to arrive. I went for a tariff without standing charge because I wasn't going to be on site most of the time. You'll need a small consumer unit and a couple of sockets installed. I was speaking to my electrician over the weekend about similar things. He reminded me that there's a guideline about the meter being no more than 3 metres from the main consumer unit, and that the powers that be don't like anything other than the meter and main switch inside "their" box.

That's a shame. Was looking forward to that pint in the Horse & Groom. Plenty of next year to go at... This is true. I was very surprised I got my 6kW export. Was expecting a flat no because all my neighbours have similar size systems. There are no end of solar farms now too.

Good call. The GSE website has some useful links too, but annoyingly doesn't produce a parts list. Re the panels, I've found some 325w JA panels that just about meet requirements for the 24p per watt price range, so similar to the original Canadian Solar. I can easily get 16 of these in the roof, and it looks like there's a chance of getting 20 if I'm lucky - the flashings are smaller than I estimated. And in other news, SSEN have approved my application for a 6kW single phase export!

It would be if the ferry companies played fair.

I am twisting the arm of a friend who has a horse lorry. It's bigger than a luton van, on a par with the 7.5 tonner, so has a chance of working, albeit doubling the already significant ferry fare. Problem usually is that the constraint isn't usually the volume - I worked out that while a luton transit will hold 18.5 cubic metres, you can't get 18 cubic metres of PIR board in there because the length is less than 4.8 metres and both height and width are less than 2.4 metres so unless you break up the boards you end up with loads of wasted space. The 7.5 tonner (assuming I found accurate dimensions) will take maximum 44 sheets of what I want, with a significant amount of unusable space. Now need to find a 7.5 tonner I can hire over this side. Luckily I do have C1 class on my licence because I'm just old enough to not need a separate test.

I have restored leather car seats in the past using products from Furniture Clinic. The products worked really well. They do training courses too, but I just watched a demo at a car show I visited and thought I would have a go since I had little to loose - the seats could be re-covered easily enough if I messed it up... If you do get someone in to do it, make sure the brief is clear (preserve the patina or not?) and you've seen some examples of the work.

Yes. That bit of water is an equal curse and blessing. I could live with 17 per m2... Even if I had to take a couple of vans to Southampton to tranship. I was hopeful of some new process for applying insulation to floors that involved moving smaller volumes of stuff around the place. I guess that PIR still has the top spot though.

I am considering options for floor insulation while I wait for deliveries for the roof. The plan is currently to use 150mm of PIR boards with 65mm of screed over the top. But this requires either paying over the odds at a local builders merchant or finding a way to get 20 cubic metres of PIR from somewhere like seconds and co moved across an expensive bit of water. Are there viable alternatives to consider that achieve close to the same insulation values and end up costing a bit less or don't require me to drive a HGV to Wales? Current best price is of the order of £33 per m2 to site.

This is only a short update because we've been taking it easy on the house so the boss and I can get some (paid) work done. Will be the school holidays soon - so slave labour will be available! I have ordered some plain and simple white UPVC soffits and facia from a local company so time to start measuring up and cutting the splines level. More work for the Alien and some string. The plumb line is made from a Lotus Elise crank pulley bolt! Hopefully the soffits and facia will be installed around the middle of next week. We have some roofing membrane on the roof. About half way there... Just the difficult half to go! My daughter wanted to see the view from the ridge, and who am I to argue? Lets not mention how utterly terrifying this is for a parent! (Even if I was up there moments before!) I have made sure she's been thoroughly chastised over even the smallest transgression when at height and while she's nearly a teenager she will still listen to me over some things. And what a view it is! This is from one of the gable "hop ups" (Why the scaffolders call them this I don't know. You'd need to be awfully tall to hop on to it.) Our neighbours visitied. This is the view from their garden. The green membrane does blend in nicely, so I believe the pale green cladding colour is the right choice. There is still some discussion about the grey window frames.

Haven't heard the expression for years being down south. Still used up in the flat farming lands where I grew up, although usually to a much lower specification than tool making! Welcome!

Thank you! I'm not worried about things coming apart at all. I trust that ringshank nails work pretty well - after all, the house is held up with them! I am much more concerned with some "trivial" bit of paperwork catching me out and causing problems with building control, the structural warranty (wouldn't have bothered but I will need to juggle finances at the end of the build) or that prevents or delays eventual occupancy.

Looks like I can answer my own question. Hopefully this is good enough to satisfy building control...

I have battens and counterbattens in a pile on site now. Happy days... Next job is to get them nailed/screwed etc to the SIPS roof. Reading through BS55xx requirements, it indicates 65mm x 3.35mm nails are required unless another nail size has demonstrated equivilent pullout force. I was considering (on the advice of the SIPS provider) using Paslode nailgun to speed the job up. This would use 75mm x 3.1mm nails (or 63mm x 3.1mm nails, but these are probably smaller than required). I found a PDF online about nailguns and roofing battens saying they weren't prohibited but there was some paperwork to demonstrate compliance to the BS, and at least one manufacturer of nails and guns had gone through the process and passed the test. But no further information of course. Has anyone got anywhere with this or do I just have to take longer with my trusty old hammer? Thanks

So true! Like everyone else, I would suspect that summer comfort is the main worry these days. The extension will need to be pretty well insulated to pass building control so should stay reasonably warm. Also, plenty of solar gain from the lantern window will help even under winter sun. (I expect it will look pretty good too.) I suggest doing a bit of maths to look at heat losses through the walls. There's a handy guide and a spreadsheet on Buildhub for helping with this. When all said and done most things can be made to work, but some of them might end up cheaper than others. And of course, welcome!

Might be higher - Kitchen units are of a standard height, more so than toilets so could be when the bricks would be at the height of a pan of sizzling bacon? I've never heard of it either, but I've only half built one house.

I bought a 2.5 tonne digger for our build and so far haven't regretted it. I was initially very rusty - I had not driven anything like it for close to 25 years - but it all comes back quickly enough. Various people I have roped in to help over the build have also used it to good effect, saving me a lot of hire charges and it's done a few jobs on other sites too. So far I estimate I would have spent at least £3k on hire and deliveries etc and would have used weeks of my holiday from work because it wouldn't be cost effective to only have said digger for say a month of weekends. I fully expect you'll get the hang of driving a digger within a couple of hours, so no problem there. But the work you list doesn't look that extensive really so there probably isn't much of a saving to be had - the people getting rid of the soil may well take the tree stumps out for you for very little additional cost because they're already there. The rest of the work on your published list is probably not much more than a weekend hire. You will find more work as you progress of course - are there digging requirements in foundations for instance? My digger made all the difference on many occasions, e.g. when we put in the ground floor concrete beams, and because it is always available I haven't needed to take soil from excavations away only to buy back more when landscaping in the dim and distant future. Mine isn't going to get much use for the next couple of months though - diggers are not known for making roofing or cladding easier!

It is an option. Would have to ammend the generation application to SSEN. That's a very good point. It is why 3 portrait 1657mm panels don't fit and two 2108 panels do fit.

They do indeed. This was where I was looking for the 400w panels. It's good to get a couple of recomendations for sources of stuff. The problem with the 280W panels is that I would need 22 of them to get to my target of between 6kW and 6.5kW (They appear noticably less efficient for the same area than the JA 320W or the 325W panels, even though they are slightly cheaper). This puts 4 panels in a more shaded area of the roof than I would like and thus compromises yearly output. I liked the look of 17 of the 365W Canadian Solar panel, (very similar price per W range) but they are still 15mm too long for GSE integration. I am going to have to do a very accurate drawing of my roof space now that I actually have one to measure!

No need. Haven't actually ordered them yet. Getting things to the Isle of Wight is always "interesting" with shipping so you can't just place an online order for many large items so I am at the point of waiting for shipping prices (or being told that it is all too difficult getting things to an island ?). I haven't found that much else in the 25p/W with a "standard" size panel, but since cost is certainly a factor here (PV has to have a hope of paying for itself) GB Sol is unfortunately not a good answer - I may be better served by spending more on smaller panels. I liked the Canadian Solar size because it fitted the roof well - gave a reasonable amount of space at the top & bottom, and only needed 16 panels to achieve a sensible output. "standard" size panels seem to waste a lot of space on the roof due to quantization - conclusion is that my roof must be the wrong size!!

The "Easy Roof" scheme is too small too. Why are these things never easy?

Canadian Solar CS3W-400P. The height is actually 2108mm but I only noticed after the editing window was passed.

I spend ages looking for a good deal on solar panels, and find something a little under budget that requires fewer panels to get to my desired output. All looking good. Until I look up the maximum panel height that a GSE integration in-roof case thingy will take. It is 300mm too short! Is there an alternative anyone knows about that will take a 2018mm high panel? I've failed tonight with the internet... I don't really want the look of on roof panels or to have to put slates under them. Thanks

Neither am I. 300 sounds much more sensible but I am not that sort of engineer...