ProDave

As well as the windows and possible excess solar gain, SIP panels tend to be a type of insulation with a low decrement delay, so you are likely to get overheating through the walls as well. What are beds 3 and 4 doing for windows?

This weeks episode again shows a lack of understanding of what you are doing. A re fit of a narrowboat. Except they added an enclosed "wheelhouse" on the back where there is normally an open stern. Okay so far but they made the wheelhouse about 2ft taller than the rest of the boat. That will work well until they meet the first low bridge or tunnel. There is a reason why narrowboats are the size and shape they are and all pretty much the same width and height. Okay to build such structures but they must be collapsible.

Change the pump on the UFH manifold. I had a similar noise, changed the supplied IBO pump for a Wilo and it is near silent. (still have to do my other manifold to shut that up as well)

Yes if it is feasible. If it requires an MCS certificate (as I cynically expect it will) then no. It will be interesting when I install my own export meter how much escapes to the grid, which will give a better indication whether it is worth bothering trying for the export payment.

0.2KWh today under a grey cloudy dull sky. Waiting for that nice sunny day to find out, only a few minutes of sun at a time lately. I still have 2 spare panels. Those will probably end up as E facing on the end of my shed (the pallet shed) with a very cheap Chinese inverter to try and grab some early morning generation. It is surprising how often we get clear sunshine at sunrise but by about 10AM it has clouded over.

The sun came out yesterday and at mid day with the low winter sun we were generating 1KW So everything seems to be working and both strings performing equally at mid day. A summary of costings: PV panels £813 Generation and export meters £25 Inverter £255 DC cable £44 Unistrut £192 Nuts and bolts £50 Timber £163 Total £1542 As a bonus, I get a shed, just for the cost of the timber to board in the sides.

See my thread here I have just installed a 4KW PV system using 4 year old second hand panels from Bimble and a new old stock inverter from ebay. Total cost £1500 including the ground mount frame. If it saves £300 of electrcity each year by self usage then it will have a 5 year payback time. I will let you know how that works in practice. As well as the usual generation meter, I will be installing my own export meter so I can actually measure how much I am able to self use and hence how much it has shaved from my bills.

Just to say if you are in Scotland you need permission from SEPA to culvert or alter the course of a watercourse.

I did that, I had just bought a new cordless drill. Finished my job, put it on the ground loaded up all the tools. Got to next job 20 minutes later and discovered I didn't have the drill. I phoned the last customer and he went out and looked and 20 minutes later it was still sitting there on the pavement. Very surprising.

Where is the garage going? Just at the end of the top right arm of the turning space and I can't see a problem.

Sure is

And if you do, keep mentioning Buildhub, and see if that gets past the edit room.

We have actually decided the lower half at the bottom of the bank is going to be the bike shed, and I will put a platform (pallets?) on the top of the bank for firewood storsge.

So how does that get you enough insulation? Any access underneath to over span underneath the joists with Quin therm?

You really must set up a video camera. YBF would have given you £250 for that.

Not as much as I would have liked. It obviously does not help building it on a bank, sloping the wrong way. To get the pitch to the south any more would have needed a longer post in the middle at the northern end, that was already the longest fence post I could get locally. Plus it might have made it a rather bulky dominant structure.

It is now.

The panels are wired in strings, usually 2 strings for a 4KW system. You really want to be putting all the panels in one string on the same orientation. So that means a 50:50 split between the two roofs is best. Unless you have micro inverters, one per panel.

It was the fact they fitted a probably heavy wood burning stove, and stone kitchen worktops, which are hardly in keeping with the lightweight ethos of a caravan and could well make it too heavy for the original suspension, and too heavy for a normal tow car. I also get the impression US caravans are designed to put a lot more load on the tow ball than the average UK car can handle. Though I expect the balance will have changed dramatically in the refit.

Yes why would you not claim it? it is shown on our planning and building warrant so I damn well expect to get the VAT back.

CPC It was a bit hit and miss as I bought them without dimensions. As it happens the replacements were too large, so I just filed them down to size.

Significant progress in spite of the weather. All panels now mounted, view from the East View from the south The unistrut is still to be cut to length. Fixings worked reasonably well. Between panels a simple penny washer and matching rubber washer The end fixing was not so good. Plenty of people on ebay selling the same solar pv brackets but nobody gives any dimensions of them. As it happens they are too small for these panels, so the self tapping screw has been added to stop any inclination for the bracket to slide off. I connected one string today, just the east facing string. It was just gone mid day when I connected it, so well past it's peak and it was generating 300W in the low winter sunshine, and gradually reduced as the sun went further. Although all the cables are in place, I can't connect the other string until the rest of the MC4 connectors that I have ordered arrive here.

Are you saying it failed withing the guartantee and they replaced it, with a new guarantee, 5 times? I will bet it was just brushes. I just replace mine but if SF are daft enough to keep replacing it why bother?

Floor plans so we can better visualise both? Building on the existing extension may make rooms hard to reach or lots of long corridors.

It Was.