ProDave

Fred drift perhaps be we are changing SWMBO's car. Presently she has a hybrid, but not plug in. We can't consider an EV as there is a regular monthly journey of 300 miles each way and we cannot pallet the idea of having to stop half an hour or more for a recharge and then having to plug in at the house you are visiting to charge. We thought a plug in hybrid would be a good idea. A car that on our local journeys would function as an EV but not have the range limitation of an EV. We were disappointed to find the pure EV range of most PHEV's is a pathetic 20 to 40 miles. That won't do many of our local journeys so not worth the extra purchase cost for what would be a very small saving in both cost and emissions. So sadly we are buying another simple hybrid. There seems to be a huge disconnect between what the customer wants and what would be a practical way to reduce emissions,and what is actually available or "they" would like you to buy. And it seems from our discussions recently with car salesmen, most people feel the same which is why EV sales are falling short of the targets they have set. You cannot force people to buy a product that does not meet the requirements of the user.

I have sympathy with this situation. When I moved up from England over 20 years ago I had no problem operating without being a member of a competent persons scheme. About 15 years ago building control started to ask for an EIC for a new build, and that was no problem. I did new builds in Highland, Moray and Invernessshire without issue. Then a few years ago the rules for rental properties changed and landlords needed to be registered and have more checks done. Then I hit the first bit of official stupidness. Highland council started to require you to be e member of a competent persons scheme or self certify by showing your qualifications which must be no more than 5 years old. Well sorry mine are more than 5 years old and so near to retirement I could not be bothered to go back to college. So for the last few years I have been able to wire a new build and one part of the council would accept my EIC but if that very same property came up for rental the other part of the same council would not accept an EIC from me. Anyway I am retired now and glad to be finished with that sort of nonsense. But even when I was working and before this recent nonsense I was often asked to work 100 or more miles from home simply because the customer could not find anyone closer. A day trip to the Isle of Sky for a simple job was a pleasant day out on a nice day but the customer had to pay all expenses so it was not cheap for them. It is possible to do short courses which were aimed at Part P in England. Most proper electricians frown on such schemes and call them 5 week wonders. It seems to me the unexpected consequences syndrome. The government seems to think they can demand higher and higher levels of qualifications and certification expecting that everyone will just stump up the extra time and cost involved in jumping through the extra hoops, and then act surprised when some of them can't be bothered and quit (or like me retire) and there are no longer enough tradesmen.

I suspect the issue is until now, nobody has practised a cold grid restart. They are now working out how to do it.

You do need "spinning mass" to maintain a stable frequency. Wind turbines yes they spin but they then use an inverter to synchronise to the grid frequency. So does PV and battery storage. The unknown is when there are no real spinning mass generators, has anyone worked out how to synchronise a grid supplied entirely from millions of inverters, which one is the master for instance? It is not net zero that caused this, but the drive to more and more renewables may be making it harder to re start the grid.

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.

Am I seeing a gap down into a cavity between the window and the silver foil? If so that wants addressing first. I just cut a strip from the plasterboard each side so the sill slides in and fill around it afterwards and mine were just stuck down.

If that is where your soil pope for the WC is going to emerge through the floor then you are going to struggle to get the WC close enough to the wall. Our downstairs WC is a close coupled type and the edge of the soil pipe connector is touching the wall, and it fits well with a standard rigid pan connector. I cannot see how it would work without forcing the whole pan and cistern away from the wall in your situation. What is below that? What can you change? Though I generally hate them, I think the best bet to get the WC as close to the wall as possible is one of those long flexible pan connectors terminated at or below floor level. Alternatively if all posi joists, then you could route the soil pipe to the other side of the room, if that is joisted differently that would allow you to get the pipe closer to the wall?

Is this subject to building control? If so that may dictate the spaces you need? How far in are you? too late to change to a wet room for the shower area?

You roof has been extended when the garage and extension was added. The "joist" you talk about is the original end purlin from the original roof structure. It is not functioning as a purlin any more, there is nothing attached to it. As to whether it could be removed? That is a question for a Structural Engineer. Yours appears to say no. I would be interested to know why. Perhaps it is performing the task of a tie bar to prevent the purlins front and back that are still under load from spreading apart? If so providing alternative means to prevent spreading is what should be considered?

I did mine a few days ago, my usual 1/3 bleach 2/3 water in a hand sprayer. Used about half a bottle of bleach in the process. I chose a dry day with rain forecast next day to wash it all off and it is all clean again. but it was nowhere near as green as in the pictures above. I do this about once a year now.

That has changed then. It used to be 600 centres for 12.5mm (which is what we have) and 400mm centres for 9mm PB (which we did in a previous house) not that anyone uses 9mm PB now.