Ferdinand

Alexa says it is 12:05.

When I was visiting @jack in 2018 I took these piccies of a company installing modular lofts on a series of houses on his road. There is the name and phone no of the specialist company in one of the piccies. How have they weathered, @Jack? My hint is that you can consider gabled upper stories as well as normal roofs, which give much more space. Mine has one front to back down one side which is gable-gable, then one with sloping roofs and roof windows at rights angles to it. So I have 2 big doubles (one very big like 10ft x 16ft), a single, and a family bathroom upstairs. Ferdinand --------------------------- Bonus piccie:

Well, since you asked the only luxury is probably the Handpresso. 1 - Aeropress. About £25, and fantastic value. 2 - The Gaggia was advertised about 8 years ago as "local collection only" from .. er .. Beverly, which limited the Ebay auction to about 0.1% of the population. ~£100. Then they turned out to be happy to post it. 2 - The De Longhi marketing strategy last year was to have 2-3 different models each month reduced by about 60% online and the rest more or less full price. Cue allegedly £930.machine for £399. Not cheap, but difficult to grumble. And it auto-froths beautifully. I see that this month their largest discount is 45% off a £499 Magnifica machine at £265. https://www.delonghi.com/en-gb F

I have several different types: - a Gaggia Classico, - something from De Longhi called a Dinamica which is for lazy people, - my second Aeropress (think the rubber perished on Aeropress 1), - and a heavily engineered thing called a Handpresso that you operate like a bicycle pump. Quite appropriately I take the last one out on the bike. F

I'm feeling picked on here. A modern kettle *still* requires several espressos' worth of water to cover the bottom. And no one has mentioned hard water, which causes an old kettle to take longer to boil. There's quite a funny desperate essay on Huff Post explaining why it is being misrepresented: https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/boris-johnson-offers-cost-of-living-crisis-advice_uk_6310ad54e4b0dc23bbef84de Boris's problem is that he has always had a mistress to make the tea. Mrs Boris' problem is that after some time on the words-and-waffle lecture circuit, and the mush-for-brains Yankee-Doodle celeb circuit (see Harry and Meghan), he will be able to afford a whole quiverful of alternative blondes. Slow Cooker: Check. Excellent. Air Fryer: not yet Worktop Pizza oven: Yep. Excellent for everything from sausage rolls to home made dough balls. (*) F * Recipe: Make dough. Cut into 12 gram balls. East with home made garlic butter (**). ** Recipe: Melt butter in pan. Add a lorra lorra garlic. Allow 15 minutes to steep. Put in small ramekin dishes. Put in fridge.

Ah McCloud. There is a certain incongruity about the setup these days.

Wasn't that chap an Accountant?

I must have been making Espressos which require several cups' worth to cover the element. 😛😛😛😛

I generally agree on Arts and Classics graduates and numbers. For some reason it de-educates them out of their 4th Form Maths - which is all most people need. However, my insulated kettle did save money, as it cooled back down less for the next cup of coffee or tea, and the temperature control allowed me to do coffee at the correct 90C, for example.

One suspects that that 1.7 mil would not stand up under oath. I'd guestimate that it is more like £2.5 million. I'll be streaming the last Tory party hustings first, not having watched any of the others, so I have some idea what La Truss is actually promising to do. What's this new transitive verb "to muff"? Perhaps I should not be asking, as I can think of lots of meanings unsuitable for Buildhub. Rather like the name I have of an online cycling acquaintance who is known as "mungecrundle" - which means nothing but sounds like an escapee from Rab C Nesbit's youthful love life. I'm aware of the intransitive version, but what is the other? Or did you mean "miff"?

I'm not taken by that one. I think the original subterranean 1st certified UK passivehaus (the one with built underneath the barn) is more interesting for that genre. Though the 'may partner was off work so rendered the outside' is good and quite Buildhubby. Ferdinand

Very interesting and comprehensive article from Carbon Brief: In this article, Carbon Brief sets out how and why UK household energy bills are due to reach historically unprecedented levels this winter, shows how the gas-fuelled increase in bills will push household energy costs towards £200bn and looks at the options to manage the crisis. https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-why-uk-energy-bills-are-soaring-to-record-highs--and-how-to-cut-them/#reduce

This is a claimed energy bill I came across today for a small cafe in Leicester: Picked up by the BBC: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-62727814

In the EU market both gas and nuclear are defined as climate friendly energy sources, following a mud-wrestle between Germany and France earlier in the year.

How will that play with the 2 years out price? I'm still of the opinion that this may blow over far better than the worst predictions - eg £6k price cap and so on - but still quite rough. I see that bits of EU stakeholders have started talking about a cap on the European gas price, and decouple the European electricity market from gas. I think that would be possible in some measure here, for a limited period, but needs careful handling - for national reputation for future investment. I wonder, given what France has done to EDF, how they will get on attracting investment in future? F

You clearly ned a Winnebago. That would be fun in the remote northern parts of Caledonia 🙂 .

Mine's called Leigh Bear.

Autotrader currently has 5k of secondhand electric cars with ranges >200 miles - so there are some around.

I think there's a lot to be said for secondhand electricals, given depreciation. I'll consider one next time around - still waiting for something sensible able to tow 2 tonnes.

Given that FITs are only index linked, no one is going to get a massive cash windfall, perhaps. Is there modelled data on this for domestic FITs and commercial FITs? I'd perhaps have more of a beady eye on the Export Payments of rent-a-roof companies - which perhaps fall more into "windfall" territory. In my domestic setup, the FITs are what I am relying on for a basic return to pay for the £12k I laid out on the solar, and the Export payments are the thing that might balloon.

Question for your Peter, as I am looking at that option. Do I need a specialist company for that, or just a normal plumber?

What's your EPC value? You can check it on the public register. https://www.gov.uk/find-energy-certificate I'm not *totally* convinced by 2007 - aiui the big jump in Building Reg insulation etc requirements was in 2010. My house was converted from a bungalow in 2008-9, and he built to better than regs but I still only call it OK (eg 70mm Celotex in the walls). Put in a diary note to take thermal photos this autumn to look for gaps in your insulation. My EPC as converted was 74C, which is still above average but not *that* above average. Average EPC for all UK housing stock is now just under 70. Don't forget existing extractor fans. If no shutter they are a hole in the wall. There are models which recover 80% of the heat and put it into incoming air. Those prices look OK. Good responses. I hope you don't mind lots of questions. Two other checks: 1 - What is your heating flow temperature? If it is above 60C your condensing gas boiler will not be condensing, and will be using maybe 10% extra gas to cover the lower efficiency. Needs to be 2 - One more checkpoint is your radiator sizes. I am probably nearly ASHP ready as I have ufh downstairs, and large rads upstairs to match the lower than normal flow temperature for the ufh. 3 - I'd still say that you need to do your own heat calculations as a check on any suppliers. I think your basic issue is still the complexity. I'm really not convinced by the electric boiler and preheater as described. F

They put a payback calculation in the Graun? Ye Gods... The original piece does contain uncorrected errors (start date of FiT are one). And for the ones which have been corrected, the editorial processes of pf such high quality that the correction has been added twice. Have a nice BH, everyone 🙂. Harry does not seem to own up to the revenue he is getting from FITs as part of his payback calculation, nor to have considered divert devices.

* Further perhaps disconnected thoughts: Adding it up and guestimating, you are looking at something like a £50k investment at a time of peak demand and high prices, plus other stuff to glue it together. 2 x PW2 installed = 15-20k. 2 x Thermino = 5k + VAT + install. Electric boiler = 2k installed (?) 6 kWp Solar = 10k installed I think this feels over-complex. That's the sort of sum that people do quite substantial renovations for, so it is great that you are taking the time to think it through. There's a French horse jumping proverb - reculer pour mieux sauter - which applies, "pause in order to jump better". * Suggestions: - I would suggest looking at recasting the problem - rather than treating it as a fixed demand that must be met. Can demand be reduced, so making the problem to be addressed smaller? See below. One of the basics with going all-electric is that the house *,must* be fundamentally efficient. - You also need to check timing considerations - can you get it in for this winter? In the context I can see an argument for scheduling the solar in for the spring, as it will deliver little in the winter. Is this programme better in phases? - How does that electric boiler compare with your combi gas boiler? Presumably if nothing in demand is changing you need it to be the same power, discounted for however much the water is preheated. The biggest load challenge is always water heating. - I'm skeptical about projected prices. But my own strategy is based on reducing winter gas demand, and I already have a large solar array on the roof. - I'd keep an eye on what Fizzy Lizzy is going to do when she is the new PM in a few days. I have little faith at present as she is putting out naive statements about tax reductions mainly when the govt strategy for the last 10 years has to take people who now need the most help *out* of income tax, but she may be mugged by reality. - I think you are not thinking separately enough about water for human use, and central heating. If you plan to use Thermino preheated water to feed heat to your central heating and permit a smaller electric boiler, you will need a tank with a thermal element of some sort to transfer the heat from your Thermino preheated water to your circulating water. That sounds complex, and it may just be better to eliminate the Heat Battery and use a Powerwall driving the electric boiler directly. Others are better than me on that. - Will your rads need replacing? * Reduce, Reuse, Recycle I think it's also going to be worth you doing a runaround the traditional reducing demand options again perhaps; increased prices have moved a lot of balance points. eg Are you *fully* LED bulbs, insulated and sealed loft hatch?, how old is your fridge & freezer (modern ones are *much* more efficient), are your hot water pipes insulated?, does your extractor fan have a backdraft shutter? or Heat Recovery, are your window reveals insulated?, do you have underfloor draughts? - all of the classic small reductions that are now worth 3-5x as much as they used to be. And bigger things such as whether your floors are insulated etc. Ferdinand

Hmmm. Interesting. That's a lorra lorra gubbins. As a ballpark, what is your current EPC value? I think you want a lifecycle cashflow model, working out eg the cost of replacing your Powerwalls after 10 (?) years and so on, to model the economics at various electricity prices. That is in addition to the thermal model of your house you need to build to understand your demand. We have a striaghforward Jeremy Harris ss available here that seems to be quite good as an approximate model. The central heating sounds unorthodox (others will comment), but I'd suggest that more solar pv might be useful.