ProDave

Definitely trestles and planks. I bought a set of the short ones that go down to about 0.5 metre, very handy for indoor work.

"According to the team, the device had a peak short-circuit current of about 33 nA, and a peak open-circuit voltage of around 2.14 V. That's not particularly high, but it is enough to demonstrate that the concept works, and might be scalable. " So that is LESS than 0.7nW generated then. I wonder what the payback time would be?

The loss will be negligible. It's better to have long DC cables as the voltage is higher and hence the current is lower on the DC side. If you are losing 10% in the cables, someone has messed up big time and wired them with bell wire.

I am hoping I can hold off drawing what is left for a few years. I plan to retire at 60 which is when my largest DB pension starts to pay. If I stop work then, I will be able to draw most of what's left effectively tax free. In other words I plan to use this to fill the gap between retiring at 60, and reaching state pension age (at which point I will have plenty)

I just thought I would resurrect this old thread to say finances have unlocked. I am still awaiting the small nest egg I was anticipating when I started this thread. That is still locked up in legal and technical bureaucracy and the sheer inefficiency and ineptitude of the solicitors dealing with that astounds me. I get the feeling a conclusion to that is still months away, and it pains me to think of the fees they will be charging for the "service" (sic) they have given. Anyway the unlocking comes from the fact a few days ago I attained the magic age of 55. That is the age you can unlock and start doing things with your pension money. So on my birthday I arranged for one small pension fund (the only defined contribution fund I have) to be transferred to a flexible drawdown account and I have taken the tax free 25% lump sum from that. The rest remains in my drawdown account to be drawn later as I need it, but will be taxable as income should I need to draw on it. That was not a particularly straightforward process as the provider the fund was with did not offer what I wanted so I had to first transfer it to a different provider, a process I started in January to ensure everything was in place to action it on my birthday. I always thought this was going to be the last source of funding to be unlocked and it still irks me that I had to wait until a specific birthday to access my own money. Ar least now we can start spending again (actually we started spending in February trusting nothing would go wrong and we would have the funds to settle the bills later this month)

I found the SAP assesment particularly unhelpful. It gives me the total energy used in a year, but not the very much more useful heat input required at any particular condition. For that I found @JSHarris heat loss spreadsheet far more useful. With all the data for my house input into that, it tells me the peak heat input to the house will be a little under 2.5Kw when it is +20 inside and -10 outside. That should comfortably be met by my 5Kw ASHP driving under floor heating and should leave it plenty of time for heating DHW as well That is the figure you need to size a heat pump for a particular house.

XP is quite happy with NTFS which should comfortably do 128GB

From a building regs point of view you only need an air in provision for a stove of 5KW or more. For use with mvhr I would still get one that has ducted air in straight to the stove so it does not draw air from the room.

I assume by rear you mean the master bedroom that is at the bottom in the floor layout plans? Is No 37 an ordinary bungallow or does it have dormers or windows in it's roof The issue no doubt will be one of overlooking No 37. If you try for instance putting in a dormer in the master bedroom I feel that would be rejected because it would overlook No 37 I would at least try for a window in the end wall of the master bedroom. At the moment you just have that little window in the 45 degree bit. There is certainly room to get a reasonable window in the rear where there is currently a blank wall. Why has it been proposed like that? I think you need to read the full planning file to see if there was an objection from the house behind that stopped there being a proper window in that end wall.

Have you done a SAP assesment or otherwise calculated the maximum heap input requirement? That is quite crucial to the outcome. What size ASHP did you have specified that was going to cost £11.5K? (mine cost just under £500 and I will be self installing it) Are you SURE mains gas will arrive and what will the connection cost be? I am not a fan of LPG for heating Your 2 options are a bulk tank, or a bank of 47Kg cylinders on a changeover regulator. The bulk tank will have an install cost, and a removal cost, check also you are not tied into a long contract. Asking them what the cost of removal will be "should you wish to change fuel" may ring alarm bells with the supplier. A bank of 47Kg cylinders is probably the short term solution, but the gas is more expensive. The only install cost is a changeover regulator and set of hoses, you can usually blag free cylinder hire as they know you will be a regular user (at least for 2 years) Make sure you keep the mains gas jets for the boiler safe for the mains conversion later. Re the PV, that dictates a hot water tank really (so not a combi boiler), but if having a stove with a back boiler as well you will be having a hot water tank (probably a thermal store) in any case.

Ridge beam hung roof will solve all your woes.

Try the "minimise memory usage" button on that page. FWIW my old version of pale moon is using about 600K of memory, has been on all day with 12 tabs open.

^^^ Yes that is the point. If you are trying to make the house truly air tight, hen there is a LOT of work sealing all that insulation and sealing around every timber that makes up the trusses.

You should, with the correct insulation over the rafters, be able to make this a warm roof. BUT the complication you will have is all the bits of the truss sticking out into the roof space will make it very hard to seal and make the roof structure air tight. Expect to use a lot of air tightness tape sealing around every bit of the trusses structure.

Are self builders "normal" of curse not. In a conversation I was having yesterday, the phrase "self builder anoraks" popped into the conversation (not by me)

I think the issue here is not so much the soil type, but the water table is very high, much like we have here at times. I bet of you dug a hole just now it would fill with water almost up to ground level. If you do create a drainage channel system it needs somewhere to drain to. Perhaps an open trench / ditch along the front of the plot? (we have a burn through our garden so have somewhere for water to drain to)

I solved the Firefox / memory / slow issue by (on your suggestion) using Pale Moon instead.

I am not sure a gas combi can do this. A lot (most?) oil combi's maintain a small store of hot water that is ready to be drawn instantly. I think they do this as the start up time of an oil burner would otherwise make them suggish. This I guess is what could allows a re circulation system to work.

Not planning to. Go on convince me? I have a lot of short runs from the airing cupboard to the bathrooms, planning that in all copper. 2 longer runs to kitchen, thinking of using some left over 16 * 2 pex al pex UFH pipe for that. Later on will be the longer runs from ASHP to buffer tank, HW tank and UFH manifolds. I really like copper (apart from the cost) I will take some convincing that plastic will be reliable enough.

Screwy' only deliver bundles of 10 and they don't do a bundle of 10 lengths of 22mm but they do seem the cheapest I have tried so far. I thought someone might know another on line supplier? I can't be bothered to even try and work out how much I need so I will start with 10 lengths of each.

Thats the thing. Now Fred Drift. Where's the cheapest place for copper pipe 15 and 22mm?

Thanks. But on the basis what I have seem to fit a 15mm compression fitting are they not 1/2" rather than 3/4? P.S don't see bent ones at Screwy's.

Only those north of the border know what Dwangs are. To everyone else they are noggins. (even in Wales)

Floor mounted bath tap. Terminates in the ends of two flexi tails emerging through the floor. What fitting to join these to copper pipe. They are a perfect fit onto a straight or elbow 15mm compression fitting but I am sure I have read that is wrong as it would only present a narrow edge to the rubber washer in the flexi fittings. Preferably a right angle fitting, flexi in, an copper out at right angles. Sorry about lousy photograph.

Our builders used the same method to endure the air tight membrane went around the ends of the joists, though they did not know it as a "Tony tray"