ToughButterCup

My personal trainer says that I have a ' resting musculature ' Debbie says ummm......?

Listen pal, wimmin are queueing up in the lane to admire my rippling torso , just like that bit-part bloke in Poldark.

@PeterW, I am not cool, I am not a dude...

I know I am going to get the blame for this. And it is almost certainly going to make it rain for a month. I've had enough of squinting and the forecast is good for the rest of the week; and I'm on the roof . All that highly reflective foil..... So I'm buying some sunglasses. I don't need to look good (or cool even), but I don't need a namby pamby pair of beach shades. I don't need a hard-man aviator look either (although deep down I am a hard aviator Tom Cruise type - but taller, much taller , .... and more handsome) Advice?

Remember your wet T shirt. And video it.

I'm planning to incorporate bat boxes in our Winter Garden roof space. Hopefully Swifts will move in: that would be brilliant. The swallows are already doing close inspections; Sid the Tom Cat is sitting on the scaffolding, licking his lips. And I have found that creating hibernaculae for GCNs much easier than I thought. Anything to keep the little darlings out of the kitchen each time it's warm and raining. We found one (dead) in the cup holder of the back seat in our car. Debbie had been looking at me accusingly - You need a shower dear. - Clearly it had been cooked by the recent weather. How the Hell does a GCN get into a car? Rare? I think not.

Dare not look.....

Ooooooohhhhh hooooo, Ahhhm on ma way hen!

Have you got a few litres of the stuff..... I need a whiff or two to get over my trauma.....

Yeah, well, I didn't expect sympathy. But even a smidge would have been nice. Photo? Its all in the washing machine: but the scaff is full of it.

Treated myself to a decent pair of work trousers from local work-wear shop. At last my knee pads stay where they are put. (The Aldi version of the trousers allows the pads to float free: kneeling meant swearing ☹️ ) Up on the scaffolding, while screwing it onto the gun, a tube of foam decides to dump it's contents on my lap and the scaffolding boards. I slip on the wet foam , and sit in it. OK, calm down at the back now please. Anyone know how to get dried foam out of my knickers, my watch strap, my hands, my watch face, my work boots, my socks, my trousers. From now on... if foaming, I'm changing to the Aldi trousers. Never mind my knees.

Hier sind viele deusche Kuchen zu kaufen. Ja, und dazu billig. Muss nur ein bischen Geduld haben...... MfG Ian

@newhome, I did discuss this with Mr Stevenson. He says he will look into providing CC payment. I drew his attention to BuldHub, and hopefully he will have a look at this thread. Ian

Yes. You have me interested in your thoughts about the integrated solar tiles...... I understand that they are wired in series : but I may be wrong. My site has a little bit of shading for part of the year, and I'm not keen on the one-off-all-off feature that goes with in series wiring.....

3.68 kWp, Yes, Just enough for self consumption - since FIT appears to be a waste of money. My thinking starts at what I think might be considered by some as the 'wrong end' of the stick. I can probably make a good guess at the amount of electricity we are likely to need in kW hours: kWh/a : lets say for argument 3000 kWh. My question is - Given that I want to avoid exporting power to the grid; How little capacity should I install to assure the optimum supply for self consumption?

Tell me more....

Building on @Stones and @ProDave 's lead (pun accidental and innocent) here, it seems that we should put in just enough PV to consume for ourselves. And if, in the same thread , @AndyT agrees as well @JSHarris, you have to have a really good reason to do something different. Next question. How much PV is just enough? Is the calculation as simple as adding up all the likely kWh per annum consumption, and comparing that with the likely kWh the PV system will produce? There will be days when we produce far more than we can consume, and others when we can't produce enough. It'd be good if we could switch panels on and off at will - bit like varying the pitch of a propeller according to need - use all our panels in winter and switch half off during summer. But then that'd be expensive too.

Well, are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin. First the references given from Nulok (I had asked for customer references) were to companies that fitted Nulok, not end customers. But frankly I'll take @PeterStarck at his word any day of the week. So I wasn't too concerned about that. Its a niggle, though. I had a long phone chat with Paul Stevenson, and no, the company doesn't take Credit Card transactions (there's no call for them) I pointed out that that might be because CC transactions aren't offered. Self-fulfilling prophecy and all that, maybe? The tone was cordial and we came to a simple agreement: fetch them myself. So, I'm going to hire a wagon, go to their yard in Birmingham and pick them up, and wire the money to him. Convenient living not far from the M6 innit?

The curse of the auto-correct.

Time for a little chat with Paul Stevenson, then. Thanks everyone for your efforts on my behalf I'll report back tomorrow. Ian

The solar tiles are wired in series. [:-{ I'd just like some tiles, please...... paid for by credit card.

Here be dragons. Have a look at this

I'm looking for openness and answers to simple questions, @PeterW. You know me: I'm an early adopter and have no real problem buying 'non traditional' products (for example Durisol). I agree wholeheartedly, Nulok does look very good. Anything that moves the sector on a place or two has to be good, but I also agree that most want to build as they've always built before. The current importer has been asked for customer references: an attempt at an answer was made, but no customer reference was given. A small deposit on a Credit Card covers the whole transaction, I understand. 4.5% of £1000 is nowt. For all I care his company can add the £45.0 to the total price if it's a concern.

I'm sold on the idea of Nulok. But....read on I have talked to and exchanged emails with the current importer The business has been operating for 2 years. But more than long enough to avoid this sort of thing. A whois.com search doesn't inspire confidence either. The company will not take credit card transactions. I have asked by email for customer references. The answer I got was evasive: no references, just links to commercial partners. A chat with @PeterStarck (who fitted his roof with Nulok) confirmed that the system is indeed worth detailed consideration. But Peter bought from a different importer who appears not to be in business any longer. I have searched for alternative suppliers of the Nulok. No joy. Anyone know anything about the current Nulok importer, or know of a supplier other than Lilyash.com? I would be most grateful if you could help me ..... thanks Ian

Thats what makes it so worthwhile.