Marvin

Hi @Andrea C Not sure what you mean by PV switch but anyway. Our Solic box is connected along the cable supplying power to the immersion. The CT clamp that is used to monitor the PV supply is clamped to the positive cable going from the main meter to our our consumer unit. No cable is required to connect to any of the PV system. When installed in this way, as soon as excess power is produced, rather than delivering it to the main grid (if the hot water requires heating) the Solic will divert, whatever amount it is, to the immersion. We use a similar system to charge the EV (Electric Vehicle). The main difference being that the EV charger requires an inductive load and must have the full wattage to operate. This means we have set up a CT relay on the PV positive cable which only switches when a certain power level is reached; from 2kW during winter to 3kW in the summer. Whereas the immersion heater uses a resistive load and the diverter will divert only excess power be it 3000 watts or 20 watts, but only excess unless you over-ride it. Our car charging system supplies about 80-90% power from the PV unless overridden. The immersion diverter supplies 100% PV excess power to the immersion unless overridden. Today was quite bright and our hot water tank reads 72.5C all from PV. We have only heated the hot water tank using mains power once since about June. I assume other diverter makes work the same way as the Solic. Good luck Marvin.

Hi @Kustom @Iceverge is spot on with the assumptions on what saves most in the long run. Also - and often overlooked is that the Airtightness and Insulation should require no maintenance over many years and use no energy, and our MVHR running all year for 100m2 floor area home consumes about 260kWh a year. M

Hi @Garald I assume you have insulation in the floor..... In our kitchens over the years we have had all sorts. We found that tiles were unforgiving if you drop anything on them and can chip (probably the less resistant ones). A tough Vinyl with commercial durability works well if no joins and laminate flooring / natural wood is ok unless there is a leak! Carpet or carpet tiles we have never tried! The terracotta tiles you show are a softer product and I think will chip. I understand that granite, ceramic and porcelain are the toughest tiles. If tiling I would definitely use a very dark grout and spray the set grout with a stain blocker to resist oil/grease stains.

Do you have abuffer tank? Is the esbe valve system set to prioritise the hot watertank?

Yes our diverter to the immersion is still heating our hot water tank. There are several systems out there which you can buy, we use a Solic 200.

Hmm.. We have AIM and APE. (Airtight, Insulation and Mvhr. ASHP, PV and EV.) I think if I did it again I would pay more attention to the Solar gain and make the systems able to alter the east and the west facing rooms inputs independently. I found, last winter, keeping the ASHP output temperature as low as possible but still keeping the desired temperature in the home, using the 'adjusted to suit our home' weather compensation alternative the most economical. Remember, the less the difference between the outside temperature and the ASHP output temperature the more efficient the ASHP runs. (But beware of short cycling) Good luck. M

The bottom line is that a building can be designed to acheive a good level of air-tightness, however building to that standard is the tricky one. As has been said there are better types of construction material that lend themselves to air-tightness, and so yes you can design to a predicted level of air-tightness, however, once the building is though of as airtight it must be tested proving in my mind that nobody takes for granted that the designed air-tightness is automatically acheived. This leads to the cost comments above. As my brother says, it's not if it can be done, but how much it will cost. Good Luck M

Then we need to spend money on energy storage facilities to support the Green energy supplied. over 24 hr period and longer.

More like saying I spent £4000 on fuel for my car but didn't say how many miles I did.

The adverts never said WHO would be saving money. Time will tell on that one.

What's wrong with having dinner at 2am?

Money comes from us. Yet again the most reliable source of renewable energy is tidal. We're an island with strong tidal currents and territorial waters over 275,000 square Kilometres. Surely we can find somewhere to do this. Or is it a problem with political will? Or its it that people would rather have more environmentally unfriendly alternatives, or in the middle, go cold in the winter. When in between a rock and a hard place there are tough decisions to be made. The government refers to cost whilst promoting costly renewables. Ha Ha.

😂😂😂🙄

Silicone?

Yes. It's a technical term of old.

Good in the winter but not so controllable in the summer.

True However, imho, it's part of the "getting used to variable rate priced electricity" scheme and the "lost leader" pricing tactics.

It's a lot of water. I would also reduce tank heat loss by encasing in insulation (protecting electrical parts) in at least 200mm fluffy or equivalent.

Sorry @SteamyTea I TOTALLY disagree.😂😂😂 First, a smart meter helps the power suppliers reduce their business risk by thinking of ways to make their problems your problems. We will eventually shoulder the up and down price of energy more relative to the market price. AND finally these companies have shareholders!😳

I'm sure someone will point out that with a higher temperature of water in the hot water tank this reduces the volume used when mixed with cold, and therefore reduces the required storage. At 60°C storage and 45°C use my guess is about 30% cold water

Hi @GeorgeAs buildings become better insulated the percentage of the heat demand required for the air changes increases. Ours is about 29% of the heat demand, about the same as the windows, even though we have a MVHR system.

and so it goes on... A combustion or flue gas analyser is used to measure the efficiency of the combustion process within a boiler. This is not the same as the boiler efficiency as it does not take account of, for example, the heat losses from the case of the boiler. So generally the efficiency stated on the rating plate of the boiler will always be lower than the measured efficiency of combustion.

Hi @Green Power Just a thought: You may wish to add the electricity used by a gas boiler to your calculations.

I like that! learnt something new again!

I didn't know a boiler could be over 100% efficient. How does it produce more energy than the gas inputs? Is that because of the heat produced through the electrical componants?