ProDave

If you are renting, refer the problem to the landlord to fix.

18kWh per day to heat DHW for 1 is astronomical. You would be better, at least as a test, to turn the ASHP off completely and just use the immersion heater. What metering do you have to be sure that is the ASHP using that much?

First do as I am and reduce your payment now in anticipation. Then have a payment holday?

There is a lot of under handed goings on in the energy industry. I had thought Octopus were a bit better than the rest but not necessarily. The amount I was paying was already £10 more per month than my usage compared to what I actually used in the last 12 months. When I went to the self service adjust your payment, I saw it was suggesting I increase it by about another £20. So I didn't use the self service function rather I emailed them with my calculations and reasoning and they accepted it, but said i could have just done it on the self service form on the website. The higher amount they suggest can be over written and you can enter a lower amount. Wasn't there something in the news about OFCOM is going to start fining companies that set the monthly rate too high.

No. My phone plugs in overnight in another room. Each side of the bed is a clock radio and a bedside light (because we have not got around to choosing fixed wall lights) they stay plugged in and the sockets are behind the cabinets. The rest of the room was more guess work. I just put several sockets along each wall, not knowing what furniture and what layout. At least 2 are now hidden but at least there are 2 available for hair dryer, hair straightener and other objects of torture a woman needs. And one near the door for the vacuum cleaner.

What data logging equipment are you using? A pencil and paper, reading 5 electricity meters and typing the numbers into a spreadsheet. Very low tech.

Slight fred drift, but something we ALL should consider: The nice Chancellor will be giving every electricity account a £400 grant paid in instalments starting in October 2022 spread over 6 months. So I have just agreed with Octopus that starting this month I am reducing my monthly payment by £40. The lower payment will still cover the lower summer use so it won't go into debt. And come October that grant paid by instalments will pay the winter additional costs. I will then review the payment again in 10 months time, which incidentally is when my fixed tariff expires so I would be reviewing it again anyway. I log my electricity usage weekly, split into total, heating usage, hot water usage and weekly PV generation. I could really bore you if you wanted me to. I jumped onto a fixed tariff in March, which as it happens is only very slightly under the present capped rate, but at least it will protect me for the coming rise expected in October. My last years usage is down month on month from the previous year. I don't think it was a particularly mild winter so I don't know why and so can't expect it to continue being lower. Last winter I did not put the heating on until November and it was off before the end of March.

You won't go far wrong with that. A few changes, we like to nail our joist hangers with twist nails in this country and I would use the taller joist hangers that wrap over the top of the joist you are hanging from.

We are allowed a 100mm ball in Scotland. the wording is "A 100mm sphere will not pass through" It's so a babies head cannot get stuck through any gap apparently.

Indeed I do. Typo corrected.

If I could have more PV (without paying silly DNO network upgrade costs) and have an energy supplier that would store all the summer PV for free for me to use in the winter it would work. There are just so many obstacles and costs put in the way of making a scheme like that work.

Our house is not "large" at 150 square metres but uses about 6MWh per year all electric (ASHP) Heating is only about 1/3 of our useage.

My solution to the running out of hat water issue (with an UVC not a sun amp) is a Stieble Eltron 10kW modulating instant water heater in the hot pipe out of the tank. It is set slightly lower than the tank temperature so normally does nothing, but if the water starts to run cool it kicks in. And given the slow re heat time with an ASHP, if someone has a shower before the tank has fully re heated, the Steible Eltron will make up the difference.

Glass is the answer, that is what we are planning.

Re the "off at night" thing. that is down to careful system design and pipe routing. I turn ours off at night for the same reason, BUT it is not the noise of the ASHP that bothers me, rather just the very gentle hum of the water circulating pump. the circulating pump is in the plant room next to our bedroom and it's noise resonates through the pipes under our bedroom. Had i anticipated this issue I could have avoided it by locating the pump elsewhere and routing the pipes a different way. The other bedrooms in the house do not suffer this issue.

Last time we discussed this did we not determine adding extra charge / discharge cycles can do nothing but harm and shorten your vehicles battery life. The analysis last time based on expected charge / discharge cycles is an EV should be able to do in the region of 200K miles before it's batteries are end of life, but it would be less if you add extra charge / discharge cycles to the batteries. This could result in "old" EV's being scrapped sooner than otherwise as when they get to a certain age, a replacement battery pack is no longer justifiable. And if / when I do buy a second hand EV (unlikely to ever be able to afford a new one) "has the car been used for V2G" will be a question to ask the owner, and value the car accordingly. I guess if you have only leased the car, and the lease terms do not prohibit V2G use you have nothing to lose?

Ours will be more like 2M depth and 4M wide.

A "why has this suddenly gone wrong" question is much easier to answer if you ask the question "what work was done in the house immediately before it went wrong" And you have your answer. Who fitted the sockets? I would be VERY worried in their competence if they mistook a thermostat cable for a ring main cable, so it is more likely they disturbed the thermostat cable either pulling it out of it's connections inside the thermostat, or they drilled a hole through it? If you trust their competence now, get them back to sort it out. for free of course.

I will be interested how they implement this at flats and inner city builds with no off road parking.

It is hard to buy land that is not for sale. But I managed it. the plot we nowhave a house on was empty for years. I by chance met the owner, and asked if he wanted to sell it and the answer was no. Over the years I asked several times and the answer was still no. Then I had resigned myself to buying a plot that was for sale but not in as nice position and further away, so out of courtesy I phoned him one more time and told him of my intention to buy this other plot. His reply was "give me 24 hours" and he phone back next day to say I could buy it.

Yes, my idea is aimed at how to mix the very hot water from surplus PV heating around a bit. What I find, is when I get this temperature step thing and the ASHP comes on because the bottom of the tank is cold but the top is still piping hot, is the ASHP does not run for very long, less time than you might expect. I am convinced that once it starts heating, this sets up convection currents within the tank that draws the top hot layer down and helps with the mixing process. Just speculation.

I was surprised just how little I wasted. ALL the offcuts were staked up in size order in an empty room, and when i needed less than a whole sheet, my first place to look was which offcuts can I use up first before starting a fresh sheet. Some offcuts remained on site for many many weeks before getting used.

What I am talking about is something to stir up the water in the tank so instead of having 70 degrees in the top half and say 30 degrees in the bottom half, it mixes it around a bit when it senses a large stratification like that and ends up all at say a nice even 50 degrees. Thermostatic mixers ensure nobody notices a change in water temperature. To make an accurate "fuel gauge" for an UVC you would need several thermometers all the way up the tank, hence if I were ordering again, I would have got at least say 5 thermostat pockets evenly spaced up the tank.

that basically means your PV generates more power than the house uses each year.

Thanks for that. That looks possible. I will be interested in the cost. Remember that word I mentioned, Compromise? the compromise here is thinner insulation in that bit of timber frame and ditching the insulated plasterboard.