S2D2

In hindsight, Cosy worked well but ended up costing £30 more than just being on Octopus Tracker for 3 months, before even factoring in battery inefficiencies. So I'm just on Tracker now. Obviously tracker won't stay cheaper forever, but at present with low rates on Tracker there just isn't a use case for Cosy to me. It still compares well against standard variable, of course. Flux was a different beast, over £200 better being on that over summer compared to Tracker with fixed export at 15p, so I'll switch back to that again in the spring depending on where export rates go.

Zero and 3 will behave the same (full OS with Python on top). CircuitPython is for things like the Pico. Good luck.

adafruit_mlx90614 is the CircuitPython library (https://docs.circuitpython.org/projects/mlx90614/en/latest/api.html) so you'd have to flash the firmware to your microcontroller. I'm assuming instead you're using a zero or such with a standard python install, so you'd want another library. The one you linked might work but note the different name for pip/include: https://pypi.org/project/PyMLX90614/ Full disclaimer I've never used any of this stuff so could be completely wrong.

Adtran box will be the ONT probably, Linksys modem+router. It should have spare ethernet ports in the back, if so you don't need a switch?

Tracker is a daily price. Agile has half-hourly pricing that varies over the day. Both have their rates set the day before or so.

https://energy-stats.uk/ Choose tracker and your region from the menu.

What really blew my mind was Octopus were proposing changing all the rads anyway to hit 50°C. The incremental cost to hit 45 or 40 would have been very small and would have been totally appropriate for my house. Whatever happened to consumers paying for what they wanted? It went all the way to the head of their heat pump operation and it was a flat out "No, we won't design below 50°C". Just change one text box, have the automated number crunching done and install what has been asked for provided it's within the realms of sensible, I don't see the issue.

Not sure, I'll let you know when I get round to it.

https://protonsforbreakfast.wordpress.com/2023/04/02/another-heat-pump-spreadsheet-beyond-the-rule-of-thumb/

Somewhat unbelievably, Octopus will not install rads larger than those for a design flow temp of 50°C. So this is definitely the way they're going.

Yes, unless the heat loss calculation is not accurate. Which yes, it might not be, even with an MCS registered installer.

This too, but you can get a heat pump quote through them which they will "guarantee" by providing the MCS component to a heat geek trained installer who is not MCS registered. It's a more recent initiative than their training/accreditation business. To complicate things, some heat geek trained installers are also MCS registered, so you can go directly to them instead but you are not covered by the heat geek SCoP guarantee.

In the radiator schedule which is included in the MCS quote along with the stated SCoP. I do agree with everything else, companies are free to register with MCS then break the rules. The umbrella companies are less risky in this regard, they would prefer to fix one bodged install than lose their entire business model by having MCS registration revoked. But yes, that shouldn't be the only tool consumers have when things go wrong, especially with the amounts of money involved.

It is, because that SCoP is tied to the rest of the design. It also directly affects the cost of running. I don't have a solution to installers being crap, but there's nothing to stop a heat pump working perfectly well if it is designed and installed properly. The up front cost is the pain point, hence the efforts to make them run like gas boilers at high temps. You save a few thousand on install costs but a poor SCoP increases your running costs. No different to any other cost/performance trade off.

Heat Geek are an umbrella MCS company which cover hundreds of installers. The MCS calcs have a design temp which will be stated on your radiator schedule. The SCoP stated is for that internal temperature as it's all linked to radiator sizes and flow temperatures. The main issue is the calcs not being done correctly. That's something that should be enforceable by MCS to fix but yeah right. Care is needed but it's not difficult to make all of these things line up.

Yep sorry, SCoP. Edited for clarity.

Heat Geek state a guaranteed SCoP and will come back to fix the issue if the install doesn't meet this, or so they claim. Without checking I think all MCS installs should do something similar, Octopus seem to get around it by only designing for a flow temp of 50° so the stated cop is low anyway. Plus MCS won't actually enforce anything if they don't.

Be aware that you have to have a certain EV car or charger to get on intelligent go. They choose when to actually do the charge which is why they can offer such good rates. You can check what equipment is eligible on their website but it's quite restrictive.

This is a tricky one as I have it tucked out the way slightly rather than very near any seating. There are four fan speeds, I run it on three (four being highest) almost all of the time. I turn it down to two if watching TV in the room quietly. One is very quiet but I've never had the need to use it. None of them are silent but it's a consistent airflow noise that settles into the background. My dehumidifier is much, much noisier. I'm also running with a higher fan speed than is necessary for the room as I'm trying to heat the whole house with it.

Depends on the unit but the electriq one I installed claims no extra items required:

+1 for R290 unit. You don't have to vacuum it down as it can be flushed with it not being an fgas. Better if you do, but mine has been fine.

I replaced a 3B with the 5, nice improvement. Active cooling is annoying, my official case fan is a bit annoying, may be faulty. Pico WH connects to sensors via GPIO pins, I have one connected to a CO2 sensor. Powered via usb and pushes values with MQTT to the 5 via WiFi for logging. Very pleased with the Pico, it hasn't skipped a beat yet.

Yes I used 2.4x0.6m 18mm sheets, staggered joins and you screw the boards to each leg. No glue, didn't see the point and in case of access.

I think the question is less the OAT changing and more how much you have to push the flow temperature to get a reasonable extra amount of energy into the house in the cheap period, which has a larger impact on deltaT and so CoP. You can backtrack from the price to what an acceptable CoP drop is but I gave it up as too much hassle with A2A. I know others have had success with A2W and a big slab to store the extra energy.

I used loft legs XL (300mm) on the current house, really solid once the floor is locking them all together. Squashing 200mm insulation to 175mm would leave you roughly the same r value as 175mm insulation so it's up to you whether head height or the extra 25mm insulation are more important. When you say lots of rows, even with 600mm chipboard perpendicular to joists? Is the joist designed for it as that sounds like a long span?