Ferdinand

Yes but the £7000 is media-wazzocks, wazzocking. I'm quite interested in why Rees-Mogg has been made Business Secretary. He is a good investor, but I'm not sure that is the skillset needed for a period that needs mainly long-term strategy plus diplomacy. I guess he is used to dealing with large projects, though. Penny Mordaunt as Leader of the House should be interesting; she can be quite vigorous. I think we can expect to see some pompous shadow ministers being thoroughly debagged.

I think a bill frozen at a typical £2,500 might still do that. But I'd be more attracted to say freezing the price for the first 2000 kWh of elec, and 10000 kWh of gas. Plus some targeted funding for some groups. Should be implementable easily, and politically snip off both a big chunk of the cost and the 'helping rich people' jibe. And will incentivise reductions.

Can you add peripheral skirt insulation round it inside or outside? That increases the heat escape conduction path, and over time heats up the patch of ground. F

Once SWMBO moves him into it, it is precisely the fabric of his house !

Move into a tent in the garden?

Ooops. Surely the other half of that deal is to make it one way by making sure you can switch out easily? Octopussy, when I looked, had no penalties. But it was still a lorra lorra extra dosh.

That's David Graeber, a self-proclaimed anarchist who was a player in Occupy, amongst other things. 😆 Not going down *that* rabbithole. 🙂

Shouldn't that make you one of the max beneficiaries of whatever package emerges? Council Tax band G is a bit steep, especially as a lot of current attractive sounding argumentation is about levelling up Council Tax to be proportional to property value. I had sight of some property taxes in the US the other day whilst comparing the areas around New York and London. In Montclair NY they seem to be about 5x what they are here in the equivalent area for the equivalent house.

Yes. Imo our UK domestic media consists mainly of attention-seeking toss-wazzocks, and the dominant priority is clicks. I've heard both sides of that reported on I think the BBC WS news and the Telegraph "Ukraine latest" podcasts, which is a 1 hour conversation every weekday. In a couple of cross-party quite high quality political groups I am in, there's quite a bit of nasty hate politics around 'boomers the most selfish generation ever', 'generation theft' and so on. There was a bigger-than-usual outbreak wrt pension increases during Covid, and I'm expecting another one. The triple lock is not popular ,despite having only delivered about £600 a year pension uplift over what it would have been over 12 years. Actually John Major and Gordon Brown made quite good decisions around increasing pension age, and the % of our GDP spent on benefits for old people has been reducing for years. I think the numbers are 5.4% of GDP in the mid-2010s down to 4.9%, and a slow increase starting in the near future. We are actually well-positioned as a country. Add in that we have about the best demographic profile in Western Europe, except Ireland, for affording pensions, and the whole thing is a monumental red herring. IMO we need a basic state pension at perhaps 70% of minimum wage (that idea is from the Netherlands), roll a lot of the minor benefits into it (eg Warm Homes Grant), then perhaps relatively increase the tax levels for higher income pensioners. F

Note to @gpawson Sept / Oct are also the Trade Sale period for Howdens - it would probably need the order placed in the sale period. So it may well be worth you going in to the branch you choose to get an account at, and asking.

You mentioned bells. It was probably me pulling the other one.

Serious q: How does that affect imports and exports of electricity, and our participation in international supply pools? is that similar to the action taken by Spain and Portugal back in June? https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_22_3550 Do we have to move in sync with other countries on this?

OT: I noticed the other day that my baseload had hopped up from 80W to about 150W. Turns out that I had left the hall lights on, and they were still Compact Flashes, not LEDs. Time for a change.

teresting moves on the continent. €65bn support package from Germany for its public. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-09-04/german-government-agrees-on-energy-relief-plan-worth-65-billion Pro-rata that's about the equivalent of a £45bn package here to give the same support per pop. Liquidity guarantees for power companies: https://www.rferl.org/a/sweden-finland-energy-companies-guarantee/32018086.html We'll see soon whether Fizz Liz is going to continue to deny support where it is most needed by adopting the wrong basic values for the time. F

Someone needs to pull the other one.

What's the plan for the house? If you or relations plan to live there then I think you will regret *not* doing it, as it will inflate the heating bills forever. And this may be your only chance. With Building Control, you are probably best asking them directly. I would just make a phone call to them and ask without mentioning the address. My BCO is quite sympathetic to constraints. Someone here may be able to advise on how to do it from the outside tout disturbing the plaster, and without costing too much. Presumably this is DIY - getting other people working on your roof is always expensive.

Don't forget the passive cat-flap.

I am hearing quite a lot about difficulties with people who have installed Solaredge. Are they there yet as a reliable supplier, who's product does what it claims? ( I already have Solaredge optimisers and rectifiers in my existing system.)

FWIW I have usually bought my units on price, and the best value has been somewhere like FastLEC. They are a very generic boxed product so I would just buy on price subject to a reasonable expectation on reliability of supplier.

Hmmmm. My comments: I wonder if any of that is a margin for your builder. Howdens branches compete with each other, so perhaps get your own account at another one and get a price yourself for the same thing. Perhaps tell them you are a small developer. I recently replaced a oven and ceramic hob for a rental, and they were a lot more than Appliances Direct. OTOH I once got a £1800 (in Currys) Rangemaster Range Cooker from them for £950 (*). I would not be using Lamona own brand (if it is that one) in a posh kitchen. But their normal (as opposed to granite etc) worktops were very good value; previous T had put one burn on each of them. I was charged £55 plus VAT each for two textured carbon-grey 3m x 38mmpieces of worktop. But that's a different market to yours. I've always found them good for my market, which is one or two levels up from the bottom but nothing like your level. It depends who you want to use. I'd suggest getting your own appliances unless there is a reason not to do so. And, if you want to use Howdens expect them to beat the comparable price; they are a volume business. You also need to consider your relationship with your builder. Ferdinand * - still in the garage if you are interested 🙂 .

It now has what it calls an intermittent mode (which is new to me), which sounds like that. I bought them initially for the trickle mode, which only uses 3W on low trickle vs 15W on boost and 20W on 'intermittent', and their third-off the price "carbon reduction week" where there is an 80% efficiency heat exchanger and separated as far as possible inlets and outlets. There's also some burble about maintaining a slightly reduced air pressure relative to the rest of house for something something something reasons, which I think is probably half burble but also a minor effect. https://www.vent-axia.com/range/lo-carbon-tempraselv And having a PIV at the other end of the house helps resist eg towels on radiators or the "what? windows open?" tendency. F

Welcome. You are the person who found the self-build plot near Oxford? 🙃

TBH Ioana, we are overwhelmingly residential not commercial here, so you are unlikely to get any takers. Perhaps try one of the Landlord or property forums with a commercial section? ATB Ferdinand

I've only just seen this. I'll add that I have been fitting the Lo Carbon Tempra P version (not the SELV one) for years in rentals (first in about 2013), paired with a PIV Loft Unit to give a throughput, and I have never had any complaints - except fitting a HRV in a bathroom. Because the air incoming is inevitably slightly cooler than the outgoing as efficiency is never 100% - so it is perceived as a cold draft by people just out of the shower. So a PIV might be next step if you need a gentle throughput for the whole house. Interestingly had a comment from a T today who pointed out that her unit has a Hi/Lo/Boost switch on the outside, which the early ones don't - and that her kids put it on boost, and that she notices the lower power used on her Smartmeter by turning it down. F

Budget: 835k. Build cost 2.2m. Plot 935k. Eventual sale price in 2019: 2.75m. Now estimated value by Zoopla at +1.4m over that. Bit of a bloodbath, and a rather tragic story. GD overreach. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/property/article-6959659/Grand-Designs-Isle-Wight-modern-house-price-cut-1M.html (TBF, that is about the same amount of cash that the Wagatha Christie libel case has cost, and not much more than the leader of Unite threw away going for Labour MP Anna Turley.)