Wil

Diversity. Don’t add up all your loads and assume the worst case is all on at the same time- apply diversity to each load. And then an overall diversity factor of 0.7 to the total to allow for you over-egging the first set of diversity 🙂

On my HP I had to short the flow sensor for initial commissioning to get it running and bubbles out of the system. Since then and removing the short, it’s been fine. Or post the make and model and someone will fairly quickly tell you if it has a pump…

@OmnibuswomanThe panels look a little expensive at £176 pretax and £500 for ancillaries seems a bit steep depending on how far from the panels the inverter will be. Check the items on ITS website for direct costs). The only thing with in-roof GSE system is that only certain panels will fit- the bigger 400W+ panels are 1900 tall compared to 1700 tall which knocks the idea of having fewer panels for greater output. Not sure if there are many panels >365W that fit, or are at a decent £/W rate, but happy to be corrected.

I’ve got an EZ-VIZ DB1. It works natively with the Hikvision CCTV system I have. Has been pretty decent even if I did have to extend the wifi down the drive to cope with it. Subscription available but has a SD Card and records direct to the NVR I already had for local control and no subscriptions.

Thanks, Cool Energy sent me an anode with my stainless steel tank so I installed it.. might just be wasting my electricity but it has a little control box which indicates as and when it wears out. Sorry for thread hijack.

Our of interest, what’s the issue with sacrificial anodes as I have one in my UVC?

Watch out for stone walls too.. I have loads of APs thanks to lack of signal between rooms. 128MB won’t last 2 mins with constant recording and most ‘motion detection’ misses critical events IMHO. has the UDR got a USB port for an external hard drive?

No way of telling with a Solic without monitoring the energy consumption. I use a combination of Shelly stuff for this. ‘When solar production is >500W and export is >100W wait 10seconds, check again, then change over to secondary load if still true.’

I have one of the Cool Energy Reverso units. Since curing the fan imbalance issue which was driving me nuts, it’s been great. However it has no valve on it, so when the heating pump is running, hot water flows through it and it acts as a basic radiator at all times. As the room it’s in will never get too hot, this isn’t an issue, but some sort of electronic valve would probably have made more sense. A simple electronic actuator and a TRV body would sort it out for less than 70!

We have a commercial tin roof we did as your mate said and just laid fibre insulation over then another layer of tin over the whole lot. Would increase the roof height by 300mm or so though. Lucky you having a non-asbestos one. I have a similar looking (slightly smaller) shed covered in asbestos 😞

There’s a whole section of electrical building design dedicated to this. Based on the rolling sphere method usually but can be directly assessed for more vulnerable buildings. Always interesting designing LPS schemes for ammo dumps. Or AA missile batteries on tall buildings in South Korea. It’s a whole section of risks multiplied together to give a final risk factor. If you live on top of a hill with no surrounding trees or buildings, you may be at a slightly elevated risk level. But it’s usually designed for prevention of loss of life rather than property as any direct strike is going to melt whatever conduction measures you have and probably make a big hole in the roof anyway. Check your insurance doesn’t omit it as an ‘act of god’ but I don’t think I’ve ever seen an LPS for a private resi scheme.

Is that an asbestos roof? Careful if you’re messing with it!

Another one for a Solic, has been excellent and paid for itself in a year. Although I’ve now disconnected it as it was fighting and draining my batteries. And the batteries allow me to use the immersion at full whack for an hour and let the solar ‘make it up’ over the course of the day. When I add some more PV on another phase I’ll definitely put it back in so I don’t need to bother discharging the batts.

I need to make alterations to a similar one- I’ll have your metal roofing if it’s in good nick. Once you work out how to take it down yourself (suggestions above infinitely sensible), let me know, it’s on my to-do list!!

Sorry, missed this Hugh. Even if they didn’t take the PCB the engineers will only replace the compressors and PCBs together as they’re ‘matched at the factory’. Seems like a good way of wringing more cash out of a corporate customer… ^ Just to be clear, the units/ compressors that failed had nothing to do with CE and are related to my day job…

It was away for 2- 3 weeks with what turned out to be a loose connector causing arcing and the overcurrent on the compressor (?). I had looked at the compressor connections and couldn’t see this, but to be fair I hadn’t pulled it apart for fear of voiding warranties. It’s a shame that it couldn’t have been diagnosed on site as it would have saved everyone time and hassle, but it was picked up, fixed and returned to me so no complaints there. I think this is the issue for them that they’re selling like hotcakes (and seems like a genuinely good product) but don’t have the staff coverage to get out and support self installers. I suspect if I’d had it installed for me I’d have been referred to my installer at the outset. I don’t know how many official installers they have but I did ask if one was available before sending the HP back to Grimsby. It’s back in and running happily since. I guess when the temperature drops and it actually gets some real use we’ll see how it goes. Overall still positive about the units and their addition to my home.

I use the Solic 200 (or did until I got the power walls). I just put a couple of Shelly 1 Relays on the various immersions and just switch them in or out depending on which part of the tank/ tanks needed heating. You’d need a dedicated circuit to feed your storage heaters, then you could choose to fill them all one at a time or all together (the dumb resistance heaters just share the supply from the Solic). Means you only need the one Solic and it throttles it’s supply to 3.6kW max apparently. Now it’s simpler to bypass the Solic and just do 1 hour hits on the Immersion using a Shelly 1PM to act as remote switch. If the solar isn’t quite enough the batteries make up the shortfall and the solar can take it’s time to fill the batts instead. When I get some more solar I might swap the Solic and immersions onto another phase but at the moment it just steals from the batteries.

“He who has a herd of cows to produce the biogas, usually has a field on which to spread the remains” - Ancient bloke proverb by me.

This over and over again. Go on, ask me how I know… Or more how my ex-landlord knows…

I have done this. Direct swap (for now) in order to get in ahead of the RHI deadline. I was/ am awaiting planning for a refurb so had to jump the gun. It works. It’s probably horrendously expensive. My EPC calls for 62MWh of heat. The HPs (I had to have 2 to cope with the losses) have used 6.8MWh of electricity since early December so at a rough COP of 3 and an estimate of 10MWh of elec for the year I’m up to 30MWh of heat delivered. That includes my HW which during the summer has been entirely solar diversion. I replaced a consumption of around 3500litres of oil so just about stacks up heat wise. As above the HPs are delivering at 45degC, not the 70+ of the oil burner. Rads were massive but full of ancient goo so even after a power flush I’m slowly replacing. Big living room can only just hold temp in deep winter and needs the woodburner to be comfortable. Thermostat set to 19 in the hall.

Think this needs some pics please!

I looked up NiFe batteries and found the below: https://www.rpc.com.au/solar-news/disadvantages-of-nickel-iron-batteries.html While hydrogen sounds fun, I’m not sure I’m up for constant gassing and topping up.

I’m blessed with the space to put them, so that’s not an issue. Keeping them conditioned at the right temp might be more of an issue though. Given my base load of 400W I use 9.6kWh per day when I’m on holiday, so that just wouldn’t do for real life. The instant UPS I understand (require to be) is a function of the Tesla PW2 and when I have 2 I get 10kW continuous, 14kW peak output. Realistically, it’s only peak winter when both ASHPs and anything else is running that I consume over 10kWh so happy to have the grid backup at that point. The Tesla deal of 24p/kWh in 24p/kWh out does look pretty interesting. If it saves me money to the point where it pays back in less than the 10 years, why would I mind? Basically where I’m getting to is putting the batts in and then maximising the rest of my PV. Perhaps even oversizing a bit and limiting to 3.68kW export. The issue I have with 3phase, is that without buying a whole system up front, or going incredibly complex with Victron equipment, I can’t see a way to have expandable storage which can balance an imbalanced charging/ discharging situation. The gateway looks like nirvana in terms of a single box controlling all phases and after that it’s just a case of adding PWs . Systems like the squirrel pod look great but add cost for the same storage. The UPS system Nick linked looks really good, but comes plus install costs (I have no way to zero rate the VAT) and I’ve no idea how 4 inverters will cope with 3 phases(although it is mentioned in the description)! I believe this is it, the DNO accepts that I can export up to 11kW of solar at any one time (balanced across the phases) therefore how do they know if it’s coming direct from PV or from the batt. I believe you have to show the DNO letter when signing up to the Tesla tariff, so this sets the limit for what they can pull from your batts/ overall system at any point.

For the really cheap version, pin up one of the LED curtain type lights to a painted board. Or go nuts and drill the holes in the board and push the individual LEDs through it. Hezbjiti 600 LED Curtain Lights, 6m x 3m Curtain Fairy Lights 8 Modes String Lights Mains Powered, Connectable Waterproof Window Lights for Indoor Outdoor Bedroom Wedding Party Gazebo Garden Backdrops https://amzn.eu/d/89YHL5b No recommendation on the above, just something you could use to push the individual LEDs through a marine ply board to create the effect. The RGBW LED tapes round an island would give a great effect too.

Well you lot aren't helping- so many other options to think about and no clear path to what's right. I went on Octopus' website tonight to play around with the Tariffs. they offered me to fix my bills. at 78p/kWh day and 49p/kWh night. If that's reality in October (or better than the reality) then the payback is starting to tumble. Nick, that system looks great, but with AGM you only get 50% DoD right? so the 48kWh immediately becomes 24kWh of battery right? and I assumed that by EoL commercial batteries, you mean the 12V type to build into banks, or did you mean the LI packs coming out of vehicles? Yes, this is the conversation I had with the installer who assures me 'it's a grey area' when the DNO says no export. I can't make the battery export, but I also can't stop it if balancing or doing a Tesla tariff.