MikeGrahamT21

Its a bit risky though, we would stand to lose around £8000 if it got found out. We did have a guy come to the house a year or so ago to read the meter, and wouldn't they be able to look on google maps to see the different locations? The whole issue has actually stopped us from installing a dormer extension on our bungalow, which we weren't very happy about. Apparently, you can ask, but they are very black and white about it.

I've been monitoring the PV array today, albeit on a pretty dull day, and have noticed that the Power from A and B are always almost identical. When i was up in the loft with the front off of the inverter, I checked that A goes to one side and B goes to the other and everything checked out, but I can't really think of another reason why the power levels would be the same. I'm going to keep an eye on it again next week and see if its ever much different, for example when the sun is on one side and not the other.

So much for upgrading the firmware, it doesn't like SDHC cards! ? One other thing which has cropped up recently was something i'd planned to do from the start, and that was to move half of the panels to a south facing roof which we didn't have at the time of install but we do now. I got in touch with a Solar PV company who are local and they said they can do it, but we would have to re-apply for FIT, which is obviously a big no no, does anyone here know any different?

Yeah we had a record breaker last year too, which initially made me think the dirt perhaps didn't make any difference (which is what several posts on the internet state)

I'll likely consider it then. We also have our terrestrial aerial directly over 1 of the panels, and the birds like to sit on it and do what birds do, so 1 panel on the east side is always worse than the rest. Going to get an offset pole to mount the aerial away from the panels which I will do before they get a spring clean, might be a worthwhile investment even if its just as a one off, and i'll see how much difference it makes, they've had nothing done since install september 2015.

Thats another thing I want to ask about. There is a local solar company who I contacted as they were advertising extended warranty for the SMA inverters (though since found out I can do this myself on SMA's site, which i'll be doing), and they do a maintenance package as a one off full inspection and clean for £110+VAT. Since we are getting ever more concerned over the original installation (company went bust) and we have no insurance backed warranty, as they decided not to bother paying it and registering it before they went bust, it seems reasonable to get it checked over, and we have had a few niggles over the years such as a tripping consumer unit, in october and november (no idea why its only these two months). Is the cleaning worth it? Plenty of wood burners round here, and the velux windows are dirty, so i can't see the solar panels not being, without the cleaning inspection only is £60+VAT.

Yeah, I thought 1.5KW sounded very optimistic too. Annoyingly today the clouds are out in force, while i was out yesterday it was a perfect day, in which we generated 4.5kWh. I've got a firmware upgrade to do on the inverter today, no idea what it fixes as they haven't included release notes, after i've done that i'll see what data I can drag from Sunny Explorer. T21 doesn't have any gliding significance, its just the first three letters from my car registration plate! Not very imaginative i know...

It does indeed, I’ll get those figures off and post them. Shame I’m not in today as it’s a lovely day. Also worth noting there’s no trees or other high objects nearby to shade us at any point in the day.

Hi we have an east west split 50/50, 2kwp on each, and a sunnyboy string inverter with each side of the roof on a different circuit. Now our generation in December and January has never been great, usually around 50kwh each month, and I’ve never really thought there was anything wrong with that, however my suspicions were raised when speaking to a battery supplier the other day. the west side is main concern, it faces slightly more north than south and roof pitch is around 35degrees, so less than ideal at this time of year id say. Yesterday afternoon we had full sun in the back, around 2pm, I was speaking to the battery person and he said you must be generating about 1.5kw (which I thought at the time was a bit optimistic), when in fact we were generating 220w. Does this sound about right. December and January we peak at around 1kw of power at best, generally in the morning. if this doesn’t seem right I’m thinking of getting a local company out to inspect it all (our installers went bust and ‘forgot’ to register our insurance based warranty) and give them a clean at the same time (hardly much more money over inspection alone). what do people think?? regards mike

Hi has anyone used blauberg for their MVHR unit? Came across them whilst looking for an activated carbon nox box, theirs is well priced at £200. Their MVHR units look good on paper, but wondering how they are in real life? regards mike

They do look pretty cool, plenty of sensors on board too. Be wary though, POE switching is expensive and power hungry!

Any of the Blueair Range, these are rated the best air purifiers in the world, and filter down to 0.1micron, much smaller than most HEPA which do to 0.3micron. We have two Blue Pure 411's which are classed as entry level, but as far as we can tell do a good job (hard to really know), and also come with a small amount of carbon to absorb smells/gasses: https://www.breathingspace.co.uk/air-purifiers-c1/blueair-blue-pure-411-air-purifier-with-combination-filter-p232 Obviously the more expensive units with SmokeStop are better for getting rid of smells and gasses, all depends how much you want to spend. EDIT: Just changed the filters for the first time today, done every 6 months, and my god were the old filters black! New filters are £20 each, so not stupidly expensive.

Sounds sensible if you want to get the MVHR turned back on ASAP, longer you can leave it the better though. Dehumidifiers and heaters lower relative humidity causing the plaster to give off its moisture too quickly, and in turn weakening it. MVHR will have the same effect, especially at this time of year. Best thing to do is just leave a window slightly open in the rooms being plastered, this way you can guarantee a slow dry, and the air temperature will also be reduced.

Leave it a couple of days until the plaster is visibly dry, remember the slower the plaster dries the stronger it will be, and you want it to last a lifetime ideally, with the heating on at this time of year it won't take more than a couple of days. Also gives chance for plaster dust to settle, and you to clean it up, as its very fine, will clog the filters up well.

So getting someone to actually install this stuff is almost impossible, so I've been having a think. We have a single large wall onto the party wall (master bedroom) which I am going to be renovating potentially next year. What effect would knocking all of the plaster off of that one wall, parge coat and then some insulated plasterboard? I'm assuming that would pretty much negate the effects of the party wall bypass?

The poured walls will be airtight for sure, just concentrate on junctions. Any blockwork, 5mm parge coat and wet plaster if you can, or dot and dab with continuous ribbon of adhesive around edges

dont forget though, waterproof doesn't necessarily mean not-breathable, though solid concrete would have a lower vapour permeability figure (i.e. be quite resistant to the passage of water vapour). On a block work house, a parge coat would generally be applied to the inner side of the inner leaf, or it would be wet plastered. What exactly is the construction type of your property?

Ahh sorry must have misread. As long as the materials are vapour open on one side, then i don't see a problem with this, normally the membrane nearer the living space would be the airtight vapour membrane, and the outer membrane could be more like a breathable roofing membrane, however you would want it to be airtight to more than 50pa (Tyvek is ok to 50pa) to avoid cold air blowing in the void. I'll let someone else more qualified answer though, one thing you could try is simulating it: https://www.ubakus.de/u-wert-rechner/?

Is dot and dab ever truly airtight? You would definitely need to do the airtighting before the dot and dab if thats the way you are going, parge coat on block work (5mm min) (cheaper than blower proof), and tape all f the junctions. Another method would be airtight membrane and wall battens to create a service void, which is a much nicer solution. If you are wanting to ensure tightness, before you board in either method, get an air test to confirm tightness. Airtightness and moisture diffusion are two very different things also, which aren't particularly related.

So i've been on the lookout for some Smart TRVs to go with our Tado system for around a year now, waiting for them to come up on offer, and finally the other week i bought some. Arrived yesterday, got the attached and linked up to the Tado app, but they just don't seem to work well at all. Because they sit so near to the radiators, the temperature is massively out when the radiator is hot, Tado say to use the offset, but this only works when the rad is hot, the offset would be completely variable, so thats not do-able. Has anyone had a positive experience with these type items? The only real solution would be to buy an additional thermostat for each room where the is a smart TRV, thats another £600 which i'm not willing to spend! The main issues i was trying to over come was that the back of the house is always colder than front, as the original stat is in the living room, which is fine until we watch the TV which heats that room up and turns the heating off. I wonder if just buying one additional stat for the back of the house would be a better idea, and do away with these TRVs, go back to the old fashioned ones I took off to attach these. Getting in touch with Tado regarding these see what they have to say.

Be very careful at this stage, we had someone do first fix and then disappear, and now we can't get BC sign off, because the person who is being certified needs to have both designed and installed the electrics. Basically it all needs ripping out and re-doing, but its plastered now. Hopefully they are still visible, in which case another firm could easily take over and assess what is already there.

Ahh should be OK then, my mistake was buying from random people off eBay!

We've been through 2 centra's in the utility now, with the latest one dead, yet the bathroom is still on its first. Picked them up for about £35 on ebay luckily, so haven't lost much. Going to replace utility with a greenwood cv2gip which are also reasonable to pick up on ebay and the web, and look fairly nice, center parcs use them, so i'm guessing they will last a good amount of time

We used an AVCL over the top of the joists, and its surprising before you seal it to the walls, just how much airflow there is, even when you have fitted the insulation very tightly, and sealed everything with expanding foam! Bottom of the joists is of course open, and the benefit of the AVCL is reduced moisture flow downwards, and the airtightness actually gives an increased airflow between air bricks under the floor, since less of the airflow is breaking into the living space.

Its a very good idea, as you say for circuit isolation, but don't be fooled, it is very expensive! I've just put a manifold in for wall hung radiators, 7 circuits, whole project cost me around £500 (excluding the new rads I needed).