MikeGrahamT21

Bit of a shot in the dark... https://www.brickexpress.com/hardwicke-minster-beckstone-mixture-ibstock-A2428A.brick I think they are slightly darker than what you want, we have them for a wall at front of house, really nice brick.

Theres the old saying, we are what we eat, I am a great believer in it, and think food plays an immense role in our overall health. There are many many essential oils, herbs etc which could replace and probably better many modern medicines, but they will never get a look in whilst the big pharma are around, their multi billion $£ industry will always see that cheap, profitless oils, herbs and the like will never make it in front of their drugs, and until that changes I think we will always be on the back foot. Majority of answers to most problems are found in nature, we just choose to ignore them in order to make money, and lots of it! The worlds greed is slowly killing us all off, and the rich just don't see it.

All to do with the natural gut flora being disturbed so i've been hearing recently, so it does make sense.

Absolutely, we are certainly over using anti bacterial agents. Bacteria in the soil are in a constant battle with each other, survival of the fittest and all, and they develop new chemicals in order to knock the other bacteria back, those chemicals are then turned in to our antibiotics. Some bacteria however, our bodies just cannot fight, pseudomonas being one of them, it has evolved a complex biofilm in order to evade and resist attack. I used to think that the bacteria came out of this 'shell' to feed, however upon further research it turns out it actually uses the biofilm for nutrition transfer, amazing stuff but very scary when it resides in your wifes lungs! The bacteria even releases enzymes to break down antibiotics before they can work, for pseudomonas this is carba-penum resistance to drugs such as meropenum .Because of this complex biofilm, our bodies immune system doesn't recognise it as an enemy, and allows the bacteria to evolve colonies. One of the worst things for all of this, is of course the over use of antibiotics in animals, which of course feeds through to us, so we constantly have a small amount of the antibiotics in us, giving the bacteria just enough to learn, and evolve.

I know just too well how bad infections of both bacterial and fungal can be, my wife being immune deficient has suffered most of her life with both, and with candida from the age of 2 (shes now 31). I assume you will be on drugs for it? Fluconazole perhaps? If you are under the hospital for your health problems, speak to them about IV anti-fungals, as they can blast candida in a couple of days, but make sure they do swabs beforehand for sensitivities. Caspofungin and Anidulafungin are the 2 most common IV treatments, should get you back on your feet in no time, both are a 2 week course, and we do them as an outpatient, via our Out Patients Antibiotic Service, though this may well be unique to our area. Whilst we are talking Fungus, can I make each and everyone of you aware of the dangers of Aspergillus. Personally i'd never heard of it before, but it lurks in the building fabric, and in great quantities in old insulation, so ensure you wear a mask at all times, Primarily it only affects people who are unwell, immune deficient, or undergoing treatment such as chemo which weakens the immune system, but normal healthy people can also get it, and it can kill. My wife contracted this last year (november), and has been unable to get shut of it ever since, despite being on aggresive treatment for it. So there you go, you've been warned! In terms of a more natural approach to candida, we did this diet when trying to conceive many years ago, and it did seem to work, it is however very strict: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Erica-Whites-Beat-Candida-Cookbook/dp/0722538561/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1526552053&sr=8-1&keywords=erica+white+candida+cookbook Hope some of this helps!

Gardening for me too is a great stress reliever, and I spend as much time as i can out there. Believe it or not, taping and jointing dry lining has a similar effect! I find the concentration required to get a good finish (being a non pro)is enough to block all the other rubbish out in the world.

The bit i self built was on an extension, physically i ended up losing a lot of weight and had a much stronger core, mentally, i still haven't got over the worry, stress, and the endless combination of different materials of which you can choose from buzzing around in my head (partly because its still not complete on the inside!), and the worst bit, did i choose right.

I quite like our split system too, although perhaps doesn't generate as much as a south system could, we can at times have generated 2kwh before i even get out of bed. The split wasn't intended, but it does work well. If we ever have a dormer put on, it'll go on the west side, and those 8 panels will get moved to the utility roof, which is south facing.

I still think on the whole that can be modified to what equipment you have, but the more information you know about your usage, the better. Thanks for alerting me about DNO requirement for storage, i didn't realise that, i found a form which would need filling out should I ever go down this route.

Thanks for all the information, its been very helpful. Sure there will be a lot of development on this, led by electric cars, and if the tesla model 3 ever makes it to the UK, and tesla remain a viable company, it may be worth going down that route instead, at least the model 3 is within reach second hand.

Right, so maybe not the best. Looking at an in depth review, it seems the US2000B comes with either LiFePO4, or LFP, how does LFP fare? I'm not going to purchase this yet, as its still too expensive at the moment, so I'll certainly keep an eye on developments over the next couple of years.

Ahh OK, but the demand profile still suits the situation, rather than the other way round. I dont think E7 would work for us if I'm honest, pretty sure it would end up being more expensive.

Just doing a bit more research, looks like the Pylon Tech batteries are Lithium Iron Phosphate: http://www.renugen.co.uk/pylontech-lithium-iron-phosphate-us2000b-2-4-kwh-battery/ This is for the previous model (4000 cycles) http://www.renugen.co.uk/content/Renewable Energy Batteries/Pylontech Lithium Iron Phosphate_Battery/Pylontech-Lithium-Iron-Phosphate-2.4kWh-Battery-Brochure.pdf This is also quite impressive, many different batteries all linked up on a live chart https://batterytestcentre.com.au/results/pylontech-us2000b/

Surely the time of demand would be changed, depending on the hardware though? For example your TOD at 2-3am, wouldn't happen surely if you didn't have battery storage? For example, i wouldn't put the dryer on in the middle of the night, because I have no storage, i'd wait til daylight at least to use the PV

Do you have any data to suggest what the battery is doing? So we can see total generation from PV, and total battery consumption, with grid consumption also. Gives a better idea to how much the battery storage actually adds to the setup.

Pylon Tech is 6000 cycles at 90% DoD, apparently one of the best available, but that is according to their own documents! Seems to be plenty of settings, like minimum voltages which stop it from totally draining the battery, so I reckon the 6000 could be improved upon. The 6000 Cycles, if charged fully and used fully would provide 28800 Kwh of power, in its rated life time, worth at 12.8p, £3686. At 18p that would be £5184. Obviously this isn't linear, and we won't get 6000 clear cycles, but i do remember reading an article which suggested you worked out the total amount of capacity in its life time, and take that from the installation cost, if you are still +ve, then you are in profit, but not sure how accurate that calculation is. Does this have any impact on peoples feelings above?

This is very interesting, I'll have a read of the manual for the ME3000SP, and see if it allows you to choose these type parameters as part of the setup.

We have the infamous east west split, and we did around 3250kwh both 2016 and 2017. The west ones don't do so much in the winter. We do have south facing space for those (2kw) now, but its almost impossible to find anyone who will move them.

As said above, the fact that most of the appliances use more power than the solar pv can provide, even at its best, the battery will get heavy use. Even when we do have the oven on, we rarely just have that on. There is several fridges (cerca 200W each) for medical storage, oxygen concentrator (500W), my work equipment (100W), background load (up to 100W), boiler in cold times (2-300W), so we will use more than the current 4Kw solar PV we have, hence why i believe the storage would be a good thing to have, to top us up during the day, and provide the background load during the night.

We are further north than you, but out of curiosity how many kwh did you generate last year?

Yeah the winter generation can be pathetic, i monitored it this winter and we averaged about 2kwh a day, so clearly wouldn't be getting full battery use. I think maybe to think about this less as the full charge and discharge cycle, the major benefit for me is the ability to top up existing generation, which rarely is enough. For example on a hot sunny day in summer, we'll generate a reasonably static 2.2-2.6kwh, which barely scrapes running things like oven, washing machine singly. The ability to provide another 3kwh from the battery on top of this 2.2-2.6, gives a lot more scope for flexibility, and of course it costs nothing from the grid.

Specs for the Pylon Tech batteries have just been improved to 90% DoD with a full 10 year warranty, used to be 80%, however their materials have improved I believe.

I totally agree with this, i really do, but there is something about more self sufficiency which can't be put into money terms. For example, having a UPS setup, for us would have key benefits. Our electric rate is 12.8p, on a 4.8 capacity thats 61.44p saving per day, however, in a day we could charge and use that capacity numerous times, so you can't just use 4.8 a day, and of course it would top up the generation if it wasn't quite enough, so I reckon the saving is actually a lot more than the simple calculation, but of course theres no way you could work that out. And of course, theres energy costs going up, over 10years, which could be a lot, and also might not be a lot, a bit of a gamble, but i'd say 18p a unit isn't unrealistic. Using 12.8p a kwh, gives a potential saving of £224 a year, so if the kit costs £1800 (which is what i'm aiming for), thats a £400 profit over the 10 years, not a lot i agree, but as said above, I think the saving potential is greater. Now if that electric cost went to the aforementioned 18p, that becomes a £1300 profit, even with the bare minimum saving. Agree the batteries would be more or less useless after the 10 year period, but would still have some good potential even if only at 50% capacity, plus in 10years time, they'll have either broken under warranty (best case scenario), and of course new ones will be a hell of a lot cheaper by then, plus the tech will be a lot better. We can't do water heating, as we have a combi boiler and no water tank, so thats out the question. Electric car i've thought about, but they won't do the range i require for work, unless i buy a tesla, which is far too much money. Ive worked hard on self consumption, and working from home really helps that, but even with my best efforts, the bloody wash basket always fills ready for a cloudy day, and of course the battery would cover this, in terms of a top up. It is a lot of ifs buts and maybes but I'm almost sure its a go-er. EDIT: We would be able to consume the 4.8 relatively easily in a non generation time, we do use a lot of electric which is unavoidable.

Hi, Aside from waiting for the price to drop a bit, I'm all set on getting a Sofar Solar ME3000SP battery AC inverter and a number of Pylon Tech 2.4Kwh batteries to go with it, in the last year a 4.8kwh package has dropped from about £3k to £2.3k, just wanting it to go sub £2k and then i'll consider it properly. I've monitored our solar output throughout the year, and 5Kwh of storage seems fillable most of the year round. Obviously in spring summer and autumn we generate far in excess of this. We aren't on an Economy 7 tariff, i suppose we could move to one and charge batteries via grid on a night, but would mean us having a smart meter more than likely, which im not that bothered about. Question is, if I say for example, bought 2 addition batteries to take us to 9.6kwh of storage, which would get used for majority of the year, to save the batteries sat being flat for months, could I unplug them when they were full, and leave them sitting fully charged until the higher output came again? The PylonTech stuff is pretty modular so allows this very easily, and aside from reprogramming the inverter, not much else would be needed. Or should i just stick with the 4.8kwh which I can use all year round? By the end of this year (Year 3), we will have earned around £1600 from the solar installation (not taking into account electricity savings, just from the FiT), and I plan to spend that money on the storage, obviously when the 2 meet in the middle (savings and cost). The plan is to do most of the house improvements in terms of energy saving, based on the money we earn from the PV, which seems a good way of doing it, and there should be more than enough to warrant it, especially when you take into account electricity savings. Regards Mike

@JSHarris Did you manage to come up with a plan for something like this? I've emailed a few more MVHR suppliers, again all say carbon filters, but again none of them can guarantee that it will even work, and at £800, its a lot of money to gamble on. I did have a thought on making any sort of carbon filter last longer, and that was to put a manual bypass, so that when the heating season is over, we can effectively bypass the carbon filter, since we don't live in a high pollution area anyway, but other than that, i'm still in the no-go camp for MVHR, which is still extremely annoying. Its a good job i've got a lot of improvements to make before i get to this stage lol! Reading a few bits online seems to suggest electrostatic will remove the majority of the smoke, which will be the ozone you spoke about. Looking on ebay these type units are really cheap to buy, and I'm guessing you'd just put the carbon brushes into the MVHR ducting and silicone them in?