ProDave

I am surprised you go there, it's polluting everyone outside. Looks more like a pub than a cafe?

Already been done https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a41869336/sand-battery/ Heat the sand with cheap electricity, extract the energy as heat for heating. Conversion back to electricity would have big losses.

Usually just a switch.

Yes you do not want to fill the cavity between the timber frame and the masonry skin. In a TF all the insulation is within the frame, or more recently a layer of insulation over the inside of the frame (you won't have that in a 90's house) There is usually but not always a vapour membrane over the frame before the plasterboard goes on. What does the EPC say? i.e.what assumptions has the assessor made?

Timber frame has been common in Scotland for a very long time so I would have been surprised if it was not timber frame. You can be pretty certain it was built with a 100mm timber frame. the unknown for that era is what, if any insulation was fitted in the frame. Earlier than 90's it would have been none, just a hollow frame. It would be a simple matter of unscrewing a light switch or a socket and having a look to see, but not something a surveyor would do and you would need to ask the vendor if you can do that to look and see. If there is no insulation then it is not a trivial job to upgrade it, pretty much all the plasterboard would have to come off to retro fit it, unless anyone knows if it is possible to install a blown in product, but even that would mean 2 holes in each section of wall so still not trivial. If it were me, I would ask the vendor if I could take a look.

The point is those of us who have trees, you need to do something with the wood. Windfall, normal pruning, and shortly I will be dropping a dead tree. I suppose I could stack it all up to become a mess in my garden for woodlice to live in as it slowly rots and slowly releases it's carbon, or I could give it to someone else to burn. So instead I burn it myself.

A lot of modern stoves, mine included, restrict how much you can restrict the air flow so it is impossible to throttle them down too much. They do this to meet the current emissions limits. While I love our stove, it's key advantage is free fuel. If you live in a city, and have no trees of your own, I would not have one.

Build a really well insulated house. My annual ASHP heating usage is 1220kWh for the last 12 months. It is still hovering around 0 here, slightly above in the day, often a lot below at night, was still snowing today. Normal winter weather up here.

Definitely do this, backdated to the date you took the roof off. It would be poetic justice if the greedy council that is trying to fleece you then got nothing, rather than the 100% council tax you were happy to pay up to the point they got greedy.

Minimum is 0 but I doubt anyone has achieved that yet. 0.5 is very good, anything under 3 means it must have MVHR (and also does not need trickle ventilators on windows etc) What are you hoping to achieve? A really well built house that is comfortable to live in and costs little to heat? Or the cheapest build you can get away with that scrapes through building regs?

Why did you do that? deemed export assumes you export 50% of generation. With a PV diverter you probably export less than 50%, so you will loose out.

Yes my plan is just to do small jobs for customers I know. I already turned down even looking at the wiring for a new build on the West Coast scheduled to happen later this year. I could do with just one more year of NIC contributions after the end of the 2022/3 tax year. What I have not been able to find is what is the minimum I can earn as self employed to qualify for that? and then set that as my target, and when I reach that target, stop completely.

I hope it won't be too long before 2 move out, but I want SWMBO to stay.

I don't have my own weather station, I just look at the data from this one, about a mile away, same valley. https://www.wunderground.com/dashboard/pws/IALNES1

It shows how much the House uses, vs the Person. We are using about 7MWh per year for 4 of us. But if the other 3 moved out, usage would NOT drop to under 2MWh

Yes happy new year everyone. This should be the year I retire and get more time for leisure. It will be interesting just how easy it is to retire from self employment, I suspect I will still do some work for a while, but nowhere near as much. Nobody is going to present me with a carriage clock and thank me for my dedicated service to the business. So here is to more time on the water, sailing, and rowing.

Your last paragraph sums it up. You spend more on motoring fuel than house fuel. I am at about 8K miles per year, and that is expected to go down this year as I am retiring. Though it remains to be seen if I do more leisure driving instead of previous work driving. Retiring is probably the best thing we could all do to help the environment.

To claim an export payment the install has to be MCS, so that rules out DIY. If your existing system is already getting export payments you could (cough) just install the extra and see if anyone notices the amount of export has gone up? But my view is you already have (I assume) 4kW of existing PV so it will be hard to self use any extra above that, and funding it on export payments I don't think makes sense. So I would be looking at the additional system being connected to battery storage entirely for self use outwith the times the main system is generating.

I have never seen a built in fridge door coming that close the the ceiling?

What is fundamentally different to a timber frame with insulation in the frame, and a SIP panel, that makes SIP panels prone to sole plate condensation and timber frame not so?

My static caravan sits on 12 pillars of concrete blocks, so a well spread load, but it is only about 2 tons of caravan son not a lot of weight. I don't use the puny wind down legs at all. For a more substantial build I would probably do a number of concrete pads a decent depth.

I think it depends of it is literally a static caravan, which tend to be quite lightweight, or are you building a properly engineered well built well insulated "house" that happens to fit the legal definition of a "caravan" (it does not need to be on wheels to legally be a "caravan") which might be very much more substantial and heavier?

I am talking of cutting a square about 4 inches /100mm square, with one edge of it at least on the centreline of the joist. You can than connect properly with maintenance free terminals in a junction box. Push that up into the ceiling, thread your new output cable to where you want it then screw your square of plasterboard back to the joist, or if you have some spare offcuts of PB cut a new square the same size that won't have the original hole in it. It is easy then to fill the gap with sandable filler, and end up with an invisible repair that can be painted. I very much doubt there will be enough slack on the existing cables to move the whole bundle over.

Great progress. Just a thought on furniture (before you buy the stuff for cabin #2) Would it not make more sense for most families to have a double bed and a pair of bunk beds? I would not have wanted to share a double with my sister even as young children!!!!!!

Just to clarify. is the joist running parallel with the light fitting? or crossing it perpendicular? The number of cables suggests it is wired "loop at light" can you confirm? If so I would cut a small hole in the plasterboard straddling a joist. Yes really. This will give you room to terminate all the cables with maintenance free terminals in a suitable box with just one outgoing cable to the light fitting. Screw the square of plasterboard back to the joist, easy as it was cut straddling the joist, fill the gap where it was cut and paint.