Ferdinand

Several factors here. 1 - I don't think you can rely on the long term Electricity price, because the French grid is in transition, Last winter at one time 70% of the French nuclear fleet was closed for maintenance, and it is still about half closed. The underlying issue is that no new reactors have opened since 2000, so whole shebang is like a clapped out Citroen - complex and unreliable, due to lack of consistent investment / problems with getting it done. Mons. Macron made promises for umpteen billions of investment in nuclear and renewable, but then also in mini-nuclear. he has earmarked something like 100bn of investment in several directions. It is not clear what will happen, or who will pay for it via what mechanism. Difficult to see prices coming down, though. 2 - Not clear wrt EDF. Their share value was wrecked by the enforced reduced price, and the ~14% minority non-Govt shareholders badly hit. For - according to me - political election-related reasons. Now it has been (or is being) nationalised. Share price has partially recovered (by about 30% after more than halving) in the last 7 days. 3 - France has been importing up to 15% of its electricity in recent months, especially from Germany and the UK. This morning they are importing from UK, Germany, Spain and Belgium - the first 3 are countries that by policy invested in renewables whilst France was committed to nuclear. I also see that the broken UK 1GW interconnector seems to have come back on stream as we have more capacity, but that the Govt has declined PP for one of the new proposals for another one for what seem to be confused reasons. 4 - So what does that mean? Personally, I would expect electricity prices to be rather less controlled, so I would prioritise being more independent from the network by reducing usage / more efficiency / self-generation - as the investments will not deliver until the mid-2030s. The current UK renewable surge is as a result of processes launched by Blair-Brown; it takes that long. Have you considered a place for solar pv to do your air-conditioning in the summer, spring and autumn? 5. As an aside - how cheap is it for you to replace radiators? The last time I looked at having a system flush when gunge jammed up the workings of an old boiler, it was barely more expensive to replace all the radiators. Ferdinand

Indeed :-). Not fiction. One Jon Goddard-Watts. Around here we seem to be in a competition for number of branches. I used to have Screwfix One 12 minutes away. and SF Two 12 minutes the other way. Then TS One opened up 50m from SF One. Then TS Two opened up 6 minutes away. And we just have SF Three opening up 6 minutes the other way, having failed to get a unit by TS Two. And 12 minutes the other way we also have TS Three in the adjoining unit to SF Two. It's like Boris Johnson, Wives and Mistresses. Though he has rebranded to Screwstation, and has 7 (known so far) direct subsidiaries. Ferdinand

Hope you didn't buy one 😁. To be fair I live around the corner (2km) from the old Appliances Direct depot in Derbyshire, and have bought more than a dozen appliances from them over the last 10 years, including 6 in one go once, so I know that Electriq is bascially an Appliances Direct house brand, roughly like Lamona with Howdens. Though I do not know if it is a separate related company. So it was a huge red flag when it appeared on a third-party site. For me AD have always been there-or-thereabouts on price, and I could go and look at the showroom in 5 minutes, pick up ex-showroom stuff, and collect easily in the estate car for smaller items. They have now moved to Castle Donnington, which is half an hour. My first thought was whether it was a secondhand bit of kit, but I think it is probably just sell-and-vanish. The brand is also now sold via Amazon, so slightly stretched and repositioned ('we only work with selected retailers'). https://www.electriq.co.uk/content/find-a-retailer . The others eg Laptops Direct, Drones Direct are Appliances Direct verticals. All run by a man in Huddersfield called Nick Glynne. Rapid-growing discounters leveraging scale remain a way to get quite rich, quite quickly. Very much a version of the same model as Pound Shop Chains, Dunelm or Screwfix. It's easier to build the front end presentation - as Toolstation prove to Screwfix' frustration. F

Order placed for the new one, since the refurb is on a 4 week lead time. I'm seeing this as a sort of informal test of a small heatpump in my house, and see how it compares to the GFCH in winter.

It may just be that it came up as one of the small number they do every year, or they think it is an unusual house. I wouldn't worry about that unless you approach 3 companies and they *all* demand surveys 🙂 .

Thanks. Looks identical. But that site looks to be questionable to me - the domain was only registered in May 22 for one year, for a start. And the discount seems too heavy. Ferdinand

OK decision time. £324 for a scuffed one without WiFi and Google Hub / Alexa linkage controllable from a mobile telephone, but with its own 24 hour timer, thermostat, and remote, or £469 for a new one in the sale with WiFi? Hmmm. Since my intention is to run it off solar for a temperature adjustment in the morning, the non-Wifi one seems adequate. Unless the timer is a delay timer than has to be reset, which would then require a master timer on the plug socket.

I haven't mooted with Zoot for a time. Hope you are well ! But depending if a smaller number is better for you, I'd consider getting a different quote from another insurance company. Just as a check that the number is in the right ballpark. AIUI, a rebuilding cost survey is unusual. My insurers have always had a number in their computer based on the features of the house, or pulled a number out of the air, or asked me. The rebuilding cost has an impact on your premium, but a relatively small impact. It is like agreeing to a mileage limit on a car insurance - can make a difference but is unlikely to make it half or double. F

Leaving aside your repeated turning of my mighty thread into a soft **** movie, you should be grateful for the more intelligent female half of the inhabitants of Bristol. If you had to wear something with that many interlinked straps, you'd be like a kitten with a ball of string, and would probably end up hanging yourself from the ceiling hook without even needing any help from the local dominatrix. Edit (Ooops. Did I just say that out loud?)

I'd suggest your point of comparison could perhaps be Building Regulations requirements for the walls of a new house, or an extension to an old house. I did a sun lounge from a repurposed conservatory a few years ago, and installed 100mm of rockwool in the roof, 75mm of celotex in the floor, and 50mm of celotex in the walls. The tenant has been very happy, and that has become the main living-room throughout the year. The thing you do need to provision for is overheat in summer. My T has her dog-crates in the sun lounge, so uses an air-con to manage the temperature for a week or three in the summer. Make sure that decent ventilation is available. In a garden room I would perhaps suggest a reversible A2A heat pump as a good option for warmth and coolth.

So air conditioner. Good.

Good question. I have taken it as a real air conditioner, since it includes 'Gas'. ANd expensive enough to be an aircon. But wisdom would be most welcome. The manual is here: https://www.appliancesdirect.co.uk/files/pdf/AirFlex15_ r290 20201016.pdf

Thinking about the hot summer which is now upon us, and my heating for next window. I have GFCH and a big (10 kWp) solar array, facing E/W. I can't do anything physical to the house currently as half of it still stuck in a family estate. So I'm looking at this kind of thing - a portable a/c, which comes optionally with a heat pump, which I have not seen before. Or a slightly smaller version of the same. https://www.appliancesdirect.co.uk/p/airflex15/electriq-airflex15 Power consumption appears to be around 1.4-1.5 kW for 3.2-4 kW of benefit. Does anyone have any views? These are not as efficient as installed aircon / heat pumps. For heating I make that a CoP of 2.5 . But for my circumstances, with an aim for a solar driven cool or hear boost early in the day, this looks quite good. And might stop me boiling now and let me leave the gas off for at least part of this winter. And there's a returned and refurbed series of them available at £325. Any comments are most welcome. Ferdinand

Thanks. I picked that up when you raised it before. I make my £65 to take into account around £35 per months = ~£400 a year. Since my danger period is GCH bills next winter, and there may be another hike to come, I am being a little cautious.

Also worth a note that this is the last day of Amazon Prime Day. https://www.amazon.co.uk/primeday Reductions tend to be around 20-30%.

Metaphorical crap, one hopes.

I'm struggling with the Yank term "French Door Refrigerators". Which are the ones we call "American Fridges".

The change of energy scale is the big difference. A good fridge or freezer is now something like a C. When I looked the only things that made an A were wine coolers. For a comparison perhaps look at annual power consumption.

Why not run the warmed water down the slide if not too hot? Kids will love it, and you will get a bit of extra sun exposure.

Interesting. Octopus has now allowed me to reduce my monthly payment from £111 to £65, it having been £91 previously up until last month, and their recommendation "based on my usage" being £147, now reduced to £137. The only change I can see is that my account is now about £100 in credit, having been £14 in debit. Hmmm. The current forecast. Actual energy bills in the latest month were just over £40.

You need to reread the definition of "Party Wall". eg Para 1 here: https://www.gov.uk/party-walls-building-works From all the above, yours is *not* a party wall and N has no rights to attach to it, paint it, wee against it, or grow a plant supported by it. Technically such is criminal damage. Having said that, I have attached to others' walls in the past, and others have attached to mine. 8 times from 10 a modus vivendi which does not upset anyone works, but that is for you to decide. There are two possible conversations here: one to educate N as to the status of the wall, and the other as to what you will accept if anything. It will be perilous to let 2 occur without clarifying 1. But OTOH you could blow up your relationship with N over a minor matter. And you may not be able to see when he does something, or practicvally be able to stop him without going nuclear. As Deep Thought said in H2G2: Tricky. What N SHOULD do is to put up a fence or framework on his land next to your wall, and attach his paraphernalia to *that*.

And knicks.

Better to fart at you, my precious.

I have discovered that the doglet (gorgeous Blue Staffie) is currently staying with its Grandma. So Happy Days.

Yes. 'Tis fun.