Omnibuswoman

An inspiring testament to the benefits of working very hard and paying attention to detail. Looks fantastic!

I’ve just completed the survey Cem. I noticed a typing error as follows:

@BotusBuild I’ll take your used paint pots! V handy for storing things in the shed away from the mice.

Taking an alternative view, why do you need UFH at all in a house with such a low heat demand? We considered all of the options, and found that the cost of installing UFH and ASHP would not be recouped by the savings we would make. Our heat demand is (in theory) 1.8kw at -4C outside. I’m using one 2kw oil filled rad in the ground floor hallway, and a greenhouse heater (300W) in the open plan area. Both have an integral thermostat. It is noticeably and consistently warm in the house - every time someone comes round they comment on the warmth - yet it’s only 19.5C. Our old Edwardian flat with gale force drafts and single skin brick walls had to be kept at 21.5C to feel bearable. We have OIG 7p overnight which I use for the hot water tank. Solar panels supplement the daytime electricity demand. You may be better off with a minimal cost low tech heating solution if the house is as highly insulated and air tight as you are aiming for.

I remember the last time this lot were in, and the Future Homes standard was put into legislation, raising air tightness and insulation standards for new houses, with a 7 year lead-in time for the house building industry to adapt. Due to commence in 2015, Cameron’s govt scrapped it just before it was due to start. Presumably due to some effective lobbying from men in sharp suits on behalf of the house building industry… imagine - 10 years of houses built to a standard of efficiency that would be instantly suitable for heat pump based heating. What a political disgrace that we are a decade down the line, and no further forward.

@SteamyTea I don’t, but I do get hiccups when I’m hungry!

We have this every time we go out to the shed and back in again!

Oh I see, thanks for clarifying. I had misunderstood that this was PP for an extension at the back of the house only.

I’m not sure that I understand why, when the front wall came down, it was rebuilt with the front door and window openings in a different place?

i think this will be my first port of call!

where do I place the probes??

No, they are both on the same inverter. I have an app that allows me to choose how to use the batteries (to the extent that I understand what to do). I can charge them from the grid overnight at a cheap rate, then they will discharge during the day to supplement supply.

How do I check this?

Could one of you signpost me to an idiots guide to basic electrical knowledge pls? I honestly can’t have been listening in my GCSE physics class as I don’t have even the most basic understanding, beyond that multiplying voltage by amps equals power. The problem has clearly worsened the less load I have put on the system - I was aiming for @SteamyTea levels of daytime usage, and that seems to be correlated to the problem. What I don’t understand is why that is…

I could have a look at the instructions and find out if I can do that. I don’t have a clamp, and even if I did I wouldn’t have a clue what to do with it 😂

@G and J we have a Solis inverter and two 3.6kW Pylontech batteries. Our electricity supply is three phase. We have also had capability to use the inverter off-grid built in, so one of the switches is for us to disconnect from the grid and operate independently.

Hmmm 🤔 That’s quite a worry… looking back at the data I have, I’ve not had a problem of overvoltage related shut down prior to late November. Very few homes here have solar PV - we are only one of two that I am aware of. When Storm Bert passed through on 23rd Nov there was a local powercut (although my home wasn’t affected). I wonder if when restoring the power they changed something in the local supply configuration. I know from the research I did before connecting to the grid that the local supply is on its knees. The DNO were trying to surreptitiously get us to fund a local area upgrade. I will speak to our installer to ask if they’ve heard of any issues with other local people.

Thanks both. @SteamyTea that theory correlates with the power stopping when the voltage surpasses 250v, however we exported electricity all summer with no obvious issues and I would have expected that to have done the same. However I only have octopus export data for that so I can’t know what exactly the panels were doing then… @JohnMo I have two consumer units - one next to the inverter, in the workshop, and a second one in the house, maybe 15 metres away, where a very large 5 core cable comes in from the workshop. You can see the cable exiting the workshop consumer unit in the below photo.

So these show voltage but no current… I’m not sure how to interpret the voltage data. I assume that PV1 is East and PV2 West, but only because I would expect East to be higher in the morning. @SteamyTea - any thoughts? I don’t know enough about power to know what might explain this…

Caught it! See series of images below…

I think you’re right, it is live data. The numbers change when I refresh the app. What I can’t do is look backwards. I will take screenshots of the live data this afternoon at intervals, and will post up here later on.

This is all I can find. No live data for voltage.

It looks as though the information I have access to via the app is limited, unfortunately. I can’t interrogate the inverter activity other than with respect to the four main parameters, and in watts or kilowatts only.

I do have an app - Solis app. I’m not sure how to view input voltages. I’ll find out!

You guys!! Honestly, I’ll never get the house finished if I let myself get distracted with this kind of thing, which is right up my street… I will add it to next year’s Christmas present list, IF I’ve finished the house… Meanwhile, there’s clearly a problem of some kind with the West facing array. This is yesterday’s output: I haven’t yet mapped it onto the available data but the chances of that being a true reflection of what the sun was doing is nil. I’ll get onto the installation company for the issue to be investigated.