Ferdinand

In this case 3 energy bills, each with readings by me. 🙂 My main active decisions have been 1 - to try and be careful and 2 - to take regular readings to stop estimates going wild. I have something which is supposed to read my PV online which came with the system in 2016, but I don't really use it.

I'd say gowider than that in case you decide on a Super King Size later. (Why are beds sized like cigarettes?) Make them doubles with USBs. And consider whether you want master light switches by the bed, too.

I've just been running through my energy use Feb-Mar and Apr-May. Tariffs jumped by about 3x on 1st April. These are the numbers. This is Octopus ex-Avro-Energy tariff. This is not what I expected, and is in 2 chunks of 2 months. ___________________________ 24 Jan -> 30 March 2022 Elec £ 114.06 489 kWh Gas £ 181.44 4170.4 kWh Total £ 295.50 ____________________________ 31 Mar - 30 May 2022 Elec £ 46.27 77 kWh Gas £ 64.10 668.3 kWh Total £ 110.37 ____________________________ The notes are: 1 - GFCH was turned off about one week into April. So it looks like approx. 15% of gas is water heating / cooking. I have not done much optimising except for being careful. I still need to del-lichen my solar panels. 2 - I have no idea by electricity usage fell like that. I would have expected it to fall by 50-60% or a little more. Perhaps unusual solar patterns. 3 - We did have a notably cold spring and warm April-May iirc. 4 - This is for a 200 sqm house with one occupant working from home, with a big 10 kWp solar array but not optimised with a divert device. 5 - I'm keeping my payment at £91 per month for now, which looks about right. That payment was £74 before Avro Energy went bust. 6 - There might be a surprise next winter, so I may need to look at heating costs. Heating is GFCH. 7 - Plan A I may consider a weather compensating controller as one option. 8 - Plan B I may look at how I can better exploit my solar PV. Ferdinand

Is this not more likely due to below standard install of CWI eg air bricks not being protected by tubes? Which allows the CWI to block up the ventilation system. Just CWI in the cavity alone would not do that surely, since there are still all the other leak routes in a traditional leaky house. IMO if CWI is done with a proper install it should be fine. But of course ventilation must always be considered. My council even had to revisit dozens of houses in an EWI project because no one had thought about ventilation properly.

Commenting mainly on the fabric. My 2c: In a large house like that with two of you I would perhaps look at External Wall Insulation, or properly done dry lining, both making sure to also manage the ventilation. And also consider things such as under-floor insulation (if necessary raise the floor if you are doing a full reno). Plus all the other usuals such as modern double glazing etc. My usual cost-effective solution has been underfloor insulation and a draught sealed floor, well rated 2G, a loft fan and permanently on trickle ventilation, dry-lining all external walls (ideally 75mm celotex or more if you have large rooms), and lots of insulation in the roof. I hvae properties done like this that are fine nearly 10 years later. I'd suggest a reasonable goal is a reduction of 40-50% in energy usage, which would normally mean an EPC figure of a High C or ideally a low B. That is a 75-85 number. There's a thread on here called Little Brown Bungalow about one I did, which has some debate in it, and care (and advice here) is useful with things like floor builldups and the order of wall elements. Was it empty for a period to get you the reduced VAT rate on reno costs (I think still available)? And go through your local Energy Saving people to see if grants or free anything are available. I think you could have got your loft insulation free under ECO. Start with the SImple Energy Advice no: If you’re looking for home energy efficiency advice, try the Simple Energy Advice website, or call them on freephone 0800 444 202. Ferdinand PS I hope you bought your heating oil at not-the-wrong-time. It's been a touch variable !

10 MWh is quite a lot. My solar (sub-best orientation but 10 kWp delivers a reliable 5.5 MWh of lecky per year. No divert device. If it was all south facing that would be about 7.5MWh I estimate. My usage including heating net solar is about 10MWh to 16 MWh per year, with perhaps 85% of that being gas for water / space heating and cooking. I guess there are people here running largish houses on under 10MWh of power per year. But the question is: Cui Bono? and where will Octopus make money from this? They are a business not a harity.

They are about to become a much needed product for LLs needing 2 more points on their EPC to avoid committing a criminal offence by renting out a substandard property. And hopefully soon for owner-occupiers if NoGoBoJo gets off his fat butt and starts imposing some regulation of Energy Efficiency on OO house, with reasonable incentives for noncompliance (say an extra Council Tax band).

Hmmm. As I see it this may be practically unknowable. Gre-mattering: Problem 1: Hot water runs out unpredictably because I do not know how much heat is left in the Sunamp. Problem 2: This is likely to be unfixable without a fair amount of technology. As part of the heat in a Sunamp is stored as phase change, and part if stored as rising temperature. So it is difficult to measure - measuring the % of phase change material which is liquid / solid perhaps being the most awkward aspect. Plan A: Partial solution: install a shower heat recovery device, which should mean that the heat required from the Sunamp is a little less due to the recovered heat, which should mean that the heat you have lasts longer than it would otherwise. So your shower should go cold less frequently. (This does not help with a bath, as you do not continue running it whilst water is running out.) Plan B: Take a shorter *&^% shower. Sidenote for @ToughButterCup. 10 minutes later I’ve got rid of a fair bit (say at least 160 litres - you can’t change the flow rate on the part of my shower that I use [iBox]) SWMBO has a bath - say 50 litres. Both at an unknown temperature but above 20. Are you sure about that 50l bath? In a normal bath (estd at .8-1 sqm in area in the hole say) that is approx 50-60 mm of depth. 2 inches and a bit. Really? Ferdinand

Can anyone recommend a good source for Eurolock barrels? I need anti snap and anti bump, and 3 keys. Thanks F

Great stuff. I think the question I would ask if whether at the end of that your house can be easily operated by a random person you sell it to in the future? We have various people around (or no longer around) who have doo-dah-diddled wonderful things that work great, but only potential with themselves as embedded maintenance engineer. One of our members looked at the great thing he had created, and then wrote a manual for his partner for when he popped his clogs. I wrestle with this as a small LL making houses as efficient as possible but still suitable for tenants, and needing to be "tenant-proof". Do you have strategies for *that*? My strategy is to keep it very simple, work to long time lines, make sure I have enough money to employ engineer or handymen, and to have done most things myself at least once so I hope I have a clue.

How do they make it 10% when my Heat Recovery Fan claims to recover 70-80%? Welcome, Tarik. If it was Manchester, presumably the stories are mainly about rain and football. 😎 I have educated myself and I am told that the new pronunciation for the name of Turkey is (phonetically in English) "Turkier" or "Turkia". I tried to make it Turk-e-i (as in E-I-E-O from a couple of English songs), but was corrected quite firmly. I enjoy visiting Turkey too - I sometimes fly to Istanbul and stay at a high end hotel for transit elsewhere. But last time I went to the City itself and took a folding bike with me on the aeroplane. The bike worked very well, apart from the tramlines. I came off the bike and an enterprising gent rescued me, then tried to sell me a carpet - an interesting experience. Very enjoyable overall. Ferdinand

I am thinking about using a pressure washer to let me work at a reasonable height. One of the applications is to clean my solar panels, which are now quite "lichened" after a few years - partly because some are modestly tree-compromised. This will require me to work from a flat roof over the garage, where the roof plane begins. The top of the array of panels is about 5.5m vertically high above the garage roof. I have a reasonably high end Nilfisk Excellent E160.1 model, which has a 10m hose so may well be suitable even sitting on the ground to avoid taking weight up even a short ladder to the flat roof, and can be fed either from a hose, or a barrel (ie wheelie bin) of water. An alternative is to look at a portable item. I am a Makita setup, and they have a good portable item which costs £400 (!) without batteries. The alternative portable would be something cheap and cheerful. I'm after experience as to what other people have done. Thanks for any comment. Ferdinand

There are a lot of strange solar proposals around in response to the increased electric prices, quite often puffed by bits of media as Gee-Wizz products. The ones I have seen are usually less than half efficient than basic panels. Isn't this one similar?

A demolish / newbuild can quite often be a better idea than an extensive / expensive renovation. Have you considered both, and are you beyond the point of no return?

Remember that you will need an accessible entrance - though that need not be at this particular entrance.

My old installer closed down the solar side entirely, and now does scaffolding hire !

Morning, @richo106. Floor AIUI there are two things here. 1 - Insulation value, where the differences between Jabfloor EPS70 and EPS100 are marginal - 0.038 vs 0.036 u-values respectively. On the U-value, you will need something like 350mm of EPS to give you the same insulation value as your 200mm of PIR. EPS100 would save you ~25mm on the thickness required afaics. Significant? 2 - Compression strength, where it needs to take whatever weight you are putting on it without collapse. According to the datasheet either seems applicable under a domestic floor. https://www.jablite.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Jabfloor-70-100-150-200-250-below-slab-Technical-Data-Sheet.pdf Wall I think you may be constrained by building regs here depending on what type of blocks you are using for teh inner leaf and what extra you have inside the inner leaf. EPS may only barely meet the required standard depending on That may force you down the PIR route. TBH I would plump for the one that insulates better, given what has happened to heating costs. Then worry about any of the house which is less insulated. Ferdinand

Yay. Someone doing my homework !

But you get sloe gin and puncture wounds ! @Adam2, go for varieties of pyracantha (firethorn) with several colours of berries, and plant them spread out along nearish the bottom, then let them develop into a thicket if you have space, and birds will love it.

Holly? Especially Ilex Ferox. Though a huge 10ft high pile of pyracantha sounds good. Perhaps Blackthorn.

Listen to yourself not the BCO on the insulation, needless to say 🙂 .

There's a lot in that, and that may be the easy way out - keep it on site. The are umpteen threads on BH about composting loos. Here's a fairly comprehensive one a couple of years old: I love that letter, @Temp - 25 pages including 13 Appendices.

Welcome.

I can't call it; I'd love to see a piece by a senior planning professional. Boiling it down to the core after my brief excursion into language, and trying to provide a useful summary: Is this a leftover from all the EU law being read across into UK law in the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 (I think it is that one; there are about 3 or 4 similar acts.) Is it English Nature being too precautionary? Are LPAs listening to English Nature too much? The LPA response has been to ignore it if deemed n/a, stop apps if they think a big issue, or require a "prove Nitrate Neutrality" report. Possible responses are: Keep it all onsite (eg etc), as many of us do. Develop high nitrate ground, which makes a net loss easier to demonstrate. Appeal, perhaps for non-determination of they try to freeze it. Argue that the nitrate issue should trigger draining to the main sewer "last resort". Argue that a single-self build is de minimis. I am sure there are other options. F

I do not think I am up to a scrambled hegg from a hostrich ...