ProDave

the thieves got clean away.......

Nothing wrong with that. You have drilled holes in a gland plate in order to fit glands. That is what it is for. At least you have a removable gland plate to do that easily rather than having to drill the box directly. My only concern for something like FuseBox, is will they still be going and replacement parts available in 10 or 20 years?

That is on the plan, but not widely talked about. I saw one video but can't find the link to re post it, that said at present 40% of homes do not have a car. That must rise to 70% to achieve net zero. So there you have it. Most of us must stop driving in any form and just use public transport to get around our 15 minute cities, with the great British countryside only available to the few who are still allowed to live there, not in a 15 minute city, or those willing to walk or cycle to explore that great wilderness that people used to live and thrive in in small communities......

Lightweights. We have had snow for over a week, hardly worth a mention, -5 last night and won't go above 0 for the rest of the week. and not a breath of wind, but the sun is out. But not enough strength in the sun to do much thawing.

Electricity use will rise 11% by 2030 and double by 2050 Which shows we have only just scratched the surface re converting from fossil fuels to electricity. So in the next 25 years, the already struggling electricity grid has to double in capacity. That is twice as many overhead pylons everywhere, and if built where needed they will not all be following existing lines of pylons. And consider where most of this new generation is, in the north, and most of the usage is in the south, the north / south interconnects need to more than double. And we don't have enough green generation to power what we use, let alone before we double what we use. And then when we reach the utopia of double the grid capacity and perhaps 3 or 4 times the renewable generation we have now, nobody has answered how the lights will stay on and our heat pumps will be powered and cars charged during a 2 week winter anticyclone. By then all the fossil fuel stations will have been decommissioned and not even on care and maintenance for backup. I am all for keeping on doing as much as we can to generate more green electricity and move what is viable from fossil fuel to electric, but I think aiming for zero fossil fuel is doomed to failure and unreliability.

And your slippers and your pipe.......

Most old school plumbers took the vent pipe as high as possible before turning back down. A new bit of pipe and a coupling or 2 would be a very easy and cheap way to achieve that, far cheaper and quicker swapping random pumps etc in the hope of finding the "fault"

I did my own experiments a couple of years back. By catching the water as high up and piping it down to the end of my land I got just over a metre head but low flow rate due to small pipe used (what i had) I calculated it should generate about 12W, yes that is nothing, and my attempt at a water wheel to catch it using just scrap I had, and trying to use a dc motor as a generator, most of that 12W was lost in mechanical losses. To do something useful, I would need about 100 metres of much larger pipe, and just the cost of buying that would make the payback time way too long, even if I could generate 100W that would be 2.4kWh per day saving about 50p per day, or £180 per year. even ignoring when the flow is too low in the summer and in flood in winter (and would have to be lifted out to avoid self destruction) I do have an old washing machine direct drive motor that might make a low RPM direct drive generator so would avoid gearing losses and I might give that a try some time, but unless I can source at about 100 metres of some decent diameter pipe at next to nothing it's a non starter.

The important thing is not so much the flow but the fall. Ours only has a fall of about 1.5 metres across our plot. In Scotland you are supposed to get an extraction licence from SEPA even though 100% of what you extract goes straight back in again.

First I have heard of a "frost mode" on an MVHR unit. Ours just continues as normal regardless of outside temperature.

Stay with the owner who was present and on board the yacht when re floated. Just a bunch of fellow sailors helping out, and hope we would similarly be helped if we were in a spot of bother. Boat re floated

This one is intact and we are hoping to re float it rather than letting it get wrecked.

Lightweights. -2 is nothing. That's about the forecast high here for the next few days. Shortly I am off to defrost and sweep the snow off the truck then off for a very cold day trying to recover a stricken yacht off the beach.

This was the original article 10 or more years ago highlighting the issue with the very old valve transmitter and lack of spare valves to keep it going forever. It seems nobody has the appetite to build a new modern replacement transmitter. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2011/oct/09/bbc-radio4-long-wave-goodbye This summarises the current situation. https://ei7gl.blogspot.com/2024/03/long-slow-goodbye-of-bbc-radio-4-on.html

Google "The long wave goodbye" if you want the full story all about obsolete valves.

I liked the old square D QOE boards because you could hot swap the clip in MCB's to save shutting down a whole office block. Not that I would admit to doing that.

Well done.

I put the direct air feed in early, and the penetration through the roof for the flue much later on when we actually fitted the stove. Don't let the nay sayers put you off. As long as you have the ability to open some doors so the stove heat can spread around the whole house, you won't instantly melt when you light it and if you have a good supply of wood it can be free / cheap heating.

Is that a type of boiler where the front case forms the air seal for the inlet air? (and you should not run it without the cover on) If so is there a blockage on the outer part of the flue that draws the air in? Works with cover off (drawing air from room) starved of air with cover on?

I flush mounted a 20 way Hager in our house, all RCBO. I like Hager, mainly because they don't keep messing about with the design of their mcb's. you can fit a new Hager MCB or RCBO in the oldest Hager board you can find and it fits and looks the same. Now try that with Wylex. MK etc

That won't be a "constuctional hearth" but will be okay if you choose a stove where the manufacturer certifies it for use on a (usually) 12mm hearth, which usually means the stove is raised off the floor a bit. Lots of stoves like that available and all you need is a 12mm or more thick hearth of some sort that can even be laid on top of wooden flooring.

On the basis I hate wearing clean, good clothes because I will rapidly make them dirty or ruin them, so I normally wear "work clothes" then I must be Compo.

Were you present when they "located" it? What did they use? Care to post some sort of sketch or drawing showing where your electricity meter is in relation to the location they have given to you?

My heat loss at -10 is only a little over 2kW and my 5kW ASHP is working well to heat the house and hot water. I bought one cheap and self installed, I doubt I could have bought the the A2W kit for what i spent.

What is heating the house? If you have a boiler or ASHP then an indirect cylinder would make a lot more sense.