ProDave

I used my little 3t digger to spread it all and compacted with the bucket then tracked over it. It was certainly not over compacted. That's the point of tracks to give a low ground pressure as the load is spread.

Since Grangemouth stopped as a refinery, our fuel now must come from somewhere in England. That is 300 miles or probably more to the nearest refinery to get our fuel.

I would settle for not being charged extra. At the moment. we in "remote" parts are charged MORE for our electricity due to distribution costs. Back in the day when electricity came from a small number of big power stations and there were none of those up here, then you could just about follow the thought process that they had to build lots of long high voltage pylons to get the electricity to us. But NOW more is generated here than we can possibly use and they are building more pylons to transport the power south. So at the very least charge the cost of that to the users in the south and reduce our charge for being "remote"

If the hose is your condensate pipe, where does the white pipe branching off to the side go?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp91md1lj92o Areas with more supply than demand (most of Scotland, certainly the Highlands) could get cheaper electricity pricing. About time, for a long time we have been paying more, in spite of so much renewable generation here.

Sorry I thought ALL types of export are just called SEG? Once you have given up the FIT deemed export payment I think you are free do do what you want.

In theory yes. The FIT pays for generation measured on your generation meter, plus a very much smaller rate for "deemed export" which is assumed to be half of what you generate. You can give up the deemed export part of the FIT while still keeping the generation payment, and that then allows you to export on one of the SEG schemes. Contact your FIT provider to discuss it with them.

And what about heating DHW? to get my HW to 48 degrees the heat pump flow temperature reaches 55. And since my heat pump delivers almost as much hot water in a year as it does heating, that is going to push the SCOP down. There is no way to measure it on my ASHP so I don't actually know what I achieve. I am not trying to downplay heat pumps. I just don't like the idea of them being "sold" to the customer as a cheaper way of heating, when in a LOT of cases, they are not. It is that sort of over optimistic sales talk that gets heat pumps a bad name when the owner finds it does not save money.

Whilst I have a heat pump and think they are good, in the right circumstances, I find it hard to believe for most people, that swapping a gas boiler for a heat pump will reduce bills by much, if anything. I have always believed a heat pump with a SCOP of 3 will deliver similar running costs to a mains gas boiler. You would have to achieve a much better SCOP to achieve a saving and I just don't believe the average retrofit ASHP can achieve that.

The point is there are several competent person schemes for electricians in England as well as Scotland. It makes my blood boil when a blinkered institution like this will only allow you to use one of them. It has to be either ignorance, which needs challenging, or the NICEIC are somehow "encouraging" them to only accept NICEIC contractoes.

Through ignorance, or they are taking a backhander to do so.

Suitably qualified is NOT limited to NICEIC, there are other competent person schemes including SELECT in Scotland.

£29 per month over 10 years is £3480 over 10 years. About the cost of a new ASHP. What do they actually do for that cost? £245 for an UVC service sounds too much. I just do my own, or I will call my local friendly non VAT registered plumber to do it for a lot less. The one bill I complain about is council tax. It is our largest bill after food, and is the one you cannot do anything about e.g by looking for a better deal or a different provider. CT is roughly twice our energy bill.

In case I did not mention all our window boards were leftovers from the engineered Oak flooring with a hardwood bead to finish the front. All still completely flat.

I didn't even screw mine down, just glued it. It depends if you think the wood will warp or not? See what I mean about the sill going into a slot each side cut into the plasterboard.